A Turkey of an Election

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, has repressed and silenced opposition to his government and within his government as well.  He has a failing economy on his hands.  He badly mishandled the earthquake that hit central Turkey earlier this year.  A lot of people in metropolitan areas like Istanbul, Ankara and . . . er, the metropolitan areas of Istanbul and Ankara don't like him.

So how did he just win re-election?

Stuff that would bring down any other world leader only seemed to strengthen Erdogan.  The results of the election demonstrated his invincibility.  Ballot recounts should confirm his victory, but he's a very crafty and resourceful leader, like Vladimir Putin.  Box Erdogan in a corner and he'll come out fighting hard.

And what exactly did he do to win?  Well, just go back to the previous paragraph, take the first word of each sentence, and make a new sentence out them in the order of appearance.

And that's not all. He exercised control over Turkish media.  He gave himself one hour of air time on Turkish broadcasting for every minute his opponent (I could look up hs name, but he's irrelevant) got.  And Erdogan was very good at activating his base of rural voters (sound familiar?).   

The Turks see to have given up on democracy after a hundred years of an uneasy relationship with Westernization.  Rather than fight for democracy, they're sitting down and putting their feet up on their ottomans.

See what I did there?