America’s Erdogan

On July 15, 2016, the streets of Istanbul Turkey were packed with citizens filled with anger, passion, and uncertainty. Tanks were driving among them with fighter jets dropping bombs from above. Nobody knew quite who was on which side, but it was clear that a Coup was taking place with the goal of overthrowing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Fast forward nine months and the scene is quite different. Erdogan, a man who has been accused of being anti-semitic, silencing the press, undermining democratic institutions, committing human rights violations, and fixing elections has more power than ever. Not only was the Coup a failure, it was entirely counterproductive because immediately after, Erdogan declared a state of emergency that extends to this day allowing him to purge tens of thousands of government officials (i.e., Judges, teachers, military generals, etc. who challenged his power in any way) for suspicion of leading the Coup. The State of Emergency was just the start, however, as Erdogan won a highly disputed referendum just days ago that is widely acknowledged by experts as the final blow to Turkey’s democracy. The vote gives the winner of the 2019 Turkish presidential election the majority of the power that is currently possessed by their parliament and judiciary, essentially creating an autocracy.

After he won the vote, President Trump called Erdogan to congratulate him on his victory. It’s alarming that the man who leads a nation that prides itself on championing and spreading democracy just congratulated a leader for ending democracy in his own state. It’s alarming that our President has, in viewing this as an event worthy of praise, gone against the knowledge and advice of the intelligence communities as well as experienced government officials once again (previous times include fighting words to the judges that blocked his immigration ban, accusations of Obama wiretapping, Trump’s insistence on the intelligence community’s ineptitude regarding everything about Russia). It’s alarming that Trump has lauded yet another leader with extensive human rights violations (Duterte, Putin, al-Sisi). None of that comes close to the anger that Americans should feel because of the similarities between Trump and Erdogan.

When Erdogan’s power was in question during the attempted Coup, he resorted to weakening the democratic institutions in his country. The immediate purge that followed included roughly 9,000 police officers fired, 21,000 private school teachers suspended, 10,000 soldiers detained, nearly 3,000 members of the judiciary suspended, nearly 22,000 Ministry of Education members fired, 1,500 university deans forced to resign, 100 independent media outlets shut down, along with much more. Not only do those numbers represent a scale that is truly unprecedented in modern history, they are from August, excluding eight months of the same thing. Trump did and is still doing the same thing, only less obviously and in a smaller scale. He constantly attacks the media, judiciary, and lawmakers who disagree with him. When then acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, instructed the Justice Department not to enforce Trump’s immigration ban, he simply fired her. This was after passing the act via executive action.

Obviously, Trump hasn’t done the same damage to democracy that Erdogan has done, but that’s not for a lack of trying. As Americans, we should be thankful that our strong institutions and powerful democratic spirit have prevented the same chaos that unraveled in Turkey from happening here, but we also have to learn from other’s mistakes, not praise them like Trump.

All stats from:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/us/politics/trump-erdogan-turkey-referendum.html?_r=0