Fear for Turkey

“It can happen here.” That’s the latest meme of Turkey watchers. President Erdogan’s latest moves against his opponents raise fears that the world’s authoritarians could teach each other how to erode a rule-based state. Mr. Erdogan’s assault on Turkish institutions reminds President Trump’s foes of events at home. Critics of Prime Ministers Modi, Netanyahu, and Orban chime in: How long before America, India, Israel, Hungary, et al become Turkey? This morning Mr. Erdogan’s police arrested a top political rival, Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu of Istanbul, on charges of corruption and terrorism. More than 100 of the mayor’s top aides were also picked up by paddy wagons. Yesterday Istanbul University stripped Mr. Imamoglu of his academic credentials. Having at least a bachelor’s degree is a legal requirement for Turkish presidential candidates, which all but takes Mr. Erdogan’s most viable competitor out. Also, too, the Turkish government is reportedly limiting public access to popular social media, including X, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Throwing the opposition’s most credible leader in the hoosegow and muzzling free speech befit tinpot dictators, not leaders of allies who are NATO members to boot. So is democracy dead in Turkey? Here’s a more realistic assessment: “Turkish Democracy Can’t Die Because it Never Lived.”That is the title of a Foreign Policy essay from 2019, by veteran Turkey watcher Steven Cook. The country’s modern founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was a secular authoritarian. Political competition arrived in 1946, now considered the birth of Ankara’s democracy. Corruption, power centralization, and frequent military coups were the rule though. Then Mr. Erdogan realized he could stay in power by way of a powerful presidency. Yes, America’s kvetchers at home say, but isn’t that exactly where Mr. Trump is leading us? Even Chief Justice Roberts criticized the president for undermining the rule of law by calling to impeach critical judges. And how about threats to take certain television stations off the air? Even worse, are we already forgetting January 6? We are not here to defend the president’s behavior or his often erratic language. Yet some perspective is in order. Mr. Trump, after all, could be watching Turkey through the other end of the telescope. Before his re-election, the party in power here used lawfare to sideline him as a political rival. President Biden’s Justice Department, Attorney General Garland, and special counsel Jack Smith went after the GOP front-runner with a vengeance. Mr. Biden’s White House, too, pressured Facebook to censor Covid stories, as Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg testified in Congress.So did American democracy die? It is not our purpose to defend Mr. Biden either. Instead we are here to glorify the Constitution. The parchment preserved the American Republic through the Civil War, Japanese-American internments, Watergate, and, yes, January 6 and Mr. Biden’s maneuvering to defy orders of the Supreme Court. Any comparison to other countries’s struggle with their democracies is superficial at best and malicious at worst. A friend from Israel writes to us to note Mr. Erdogan’s moves and Mr. Orban’s ban, imposed today, against LGBT marches. Is Israel next, he asked. We doubt it. Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, a gay Likudnik, might have a say. Mr. Netanyahu appears in court twice a week defending himself, rather than prosecuting opponents. Hungary’s budding democracy in a former Soviet-bloc state is no comparison to Israel’s ancient Jewish value-based system. “A republic, if you can keep it,” Franklin is said to have proclaimed after he signed the Constitution. Yes, democracies can be fragile, and worrying about them is rampant among those watching the likes of Mr. Erdogan. Yet the genius of the Founding Fathers, the solons of Ancient Greece, the sages of Sinai, et al are all guides through the most challenging assaults on our values. Verify, we say, but trust.

Fear for Turkey

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