Trump and the Sultan

[drunkenshoe]

This was written in 20th of July 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/opinion/trump-and-the-sultan.html

Turkey is a long way from Cleveland, where the Republicans are holding their presidential convention. But I’d urge you to study the recent failed military coup against Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. America is not Turkey â€" but in terms of personality and political strategy, Erdogan and Donald Trump were separated at birth.

And the drama playing out in Turkey today is the story of just how off track a once successful country can get when a leader who demonizes all his rivals and dabbles in crazy conspiracy theories comes to believe that he alone is The Man â€" the only one who can make his country great again â€" and ensconces himself in power.

Let’s start with Erdogan, who was prime minister from 2003 to 2014, but then maneuvered himself into the previously symbolic role of president and got all key powers shifted to that position. I confess that when I first heard the news of the July 15 coup attempt, my first instinct was to consult that great foreign policy expert Miss Manners, The Washington Post’s etiquette columnist, because I was asking myself, “What is the right response when bad things happen to bad people?”

“Dear Miss Manners: I instinctively oppose military coups against democratically elected governments, like the one in Turkey. But am I a bad person if part of me felt that Turkey’s president had it coming?”

Anyone who has been following Turkey closely knows that Erdogan has been mounting a silent, drip-by-drip coup of his own against Turkish democracy for years â€" jailing reporters, hounding rivals with giant tax bills, reviving an internal war against Turkish Kurds to stoke nationalist passions to propel his efforts to grab more powers â€" and by generally making himself into a modern-day sultan for life.

I’m glad the coup failed, especially the way it did â€" with many secular Turks who actually opposed Erdogan’s autocratic rule, and had been abused by it, nevertheless coming out against the plotters on the principle that Turkish democracy must be upheld. That was a truly impressive act of collective wisdom and a display of democratic sensibilities.

The maturity of the Turkish people resulted in Erdogan’s getting what golfers call a mulligan, or a do-over, to demonstrate that he is committed to the universal precepts of democracy. Will he? Or will Erdogan go right back to his preferred means of staying in power: dividing Turks into his supporters and enemies of the state, weaving conspiracy theories and using the failed coup as a license for a witch hunt, not only for plotters but for anyone who has dared to cross his path?

The early signs are bad. A day after the failed coup, Erdogan dismissed 2,745 judges and prosecutors. How did he know exactly who to fire in one day? Did he already have an enemies list? To date, he has now reportedly purged 1,500 university deans, revoked the licenses of 21,000 teachers and either purged or detained nearly 35,000 members of the military, security forces and judiciary as part of his “cleansing” of coup supporters.

Here’s the real tragedy: Erdogan was an outstanding leader his first five years and truly lifted the country’s economy and middle class. But since then it’s all gone to his head, and he has gotten away with increasingly bad behavior by creating an us-versus-them divide between his loyal, more religious followers, and the more secular communities in Turkey.

Because his followers see their dignity wrapped up in his remaining in power, he can say and do anything and never pay a political price. His base will always rally to his us-versus-them dog whistles. But Turkey in the long run suffers.

Sound familiar?

Trump relies on the same tactics: He fabricates facts and figures on an industrial scale. He regularly puts out conspiracy theories â€" his latest is that President Obama’s “body language” suggests that “there’s something going on” with the president â€" hinting that Obama is not comfortable condemning the killing of cops by African-American gunmen and has sympathy for radical Islamists.

Trump also relies on the us-versus-them bond with his followers to avoid punishment for any of his misbehavior. He, too, is obsessed with his own prowess, and he uses Twitter to get around traditional media gatekeepers â€" and fact-checkers â€" to inject anything he wants into the nation’s media bloodstream. (Erdogan just uses his own friendly media.) And most of the people Trump has surrounded himself with are either family or second-raters looking for a star turn, including his vice-presidential choice and the person who wrote his wife’s convention speech and clearly plagiarized part of it from Michelle Obama. The whole thing reeks of flimflam.

If Trump is elected, I don’t think there will be a military coup, but I guarantee you that Jeb Bush’s prediction will be proved true, that he’ll be “a chaos president” just as he’s been a “chaos candidate.” Americans will regularly be in the streets, because they are not going to follow â€" on any big issue â€" a man who lies as he breathes, who has not done an ounce of homework to prepare for the job and who generates support by conspiracy theories and making people afraid of the future and one another.

If you like what’s going on in Turkey today, you’ll love Trump’s America.

[Baruch]

I would agree, if we had elected Pat Robertson.  That is what drove me off Republican candidates in the 1980s.  You are about 30 years too late in your analysis.  But the Republicans played the Evangelicals for fools, just like the Democrats do with African-Americans.

[drunkenshoe]

You are about 30 years too late in your analysis. 

Are you talking to the writer?  I was 10 years old 30 years ago.

[Baruch]

Are you talking to the writer?  I was 10 years old 30 years ago.

Yes to both.  You chose the article, but you didn't write it.  The thesis suites your rhetoric.  Trump isn't religious.  If you believe that Erdogan is an atheist apostate Muslim, trying to pretend to be a theist Sunni Muslim ... a cynical act ... then he might be like Trump.  Hillary is Methodist, but she isn't sanctimonious.  Trump's religion is money.  But if the comparison is with followers ... then the analysis is spot on.  I suspect that the average rural Turk never got on board with the Ataturk reforms (unlike the college educated), just as most White blue-collar people were abandoned by the D party here.  If my father was still alive he would never have voted for any of the champaign liberals (even if he wasn't Republican).  He would have nothing in common with the SJW folks either (the modern Left).

[drunkenshoe]

Oh gawd Baruch. You think Erdogan is a religious leader?

The opposite of trading in religious politics and constantly using it as a tool to adminstrate for more power is not "an atheist apostate Muslim".

He is a politician and a business man. The muslim thing is what the rubes do with christian thing over there. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE. It's the basic PR, because religious people have been the 2nd class citizens here for the last 90 years -amost the entire life span of the republic minus erdogan's regime- after Ottoman Epire was defeated by Turks and caliphacy was abolished along withe sultanate. Can you wrap your head around that? Rubes here finally won after 90 years.

You are programmed to see it different, because of the domestic policies of your own and the delusion of 'things are always different in America'. It's not.

[Baruch]

Thanks for the clarification ... about a Sultanate of Business, not a Sultanate of Islam.  Erdogan has vast wealth hidden in Switzerland then?

[drunkenshoe]

Thanks for the clarification ... about a Sultanate of Business, not a Sultanate of Islam.  Erdogan has vast wealth hidden in Switzerland then?

I have no idea. Probably. The amount of money they have been spending have no explanation AT ALL.

Also because of all that Islamic countries do not 'trust' him. While he was supported by the US gov, because he could serve the best tool to poke them with creating economical stabiliy, he proved a tiny ME version America wanna be. And with Republicans on the throne, he can actually achieve his dreams this time.

Video has English subtitles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TceBvMsnY2I

[Cavebear]

I have no idea. Probably. The amount of money they have been spending have no explanation AT ALL.

Also because of all that Islamic countries do not 'trust' him. While he was supported by the US gov, because he could serve the best tool to poke them with creating economical stabiliy, he proved a tiny ME version America wanna be. And with Republicans on the throne, he can actually achieve his dreams this time.

Video has English subtitles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TceBvMsnY2I

Turkey is not really a modern State and has no good fit into NATO.

[Baruch]

Turkey is in Nato ... because of the Bosporus ... and a convenient staging to attack the rest of the Middle East (which is failed to do in 1991 and 2003).