bribing the people is what politicians do, what else is a manifesto? Erdogan's trolling of democracy only works because it is an accurate account of how it works
Erdogan, a dictator tyrant, and democracy, don't fit in the same sentence.
It is true that the democratic system has failed: quality journalism died and the truth with it, the rich have a huge separate-from-society system for wealth hoarding, we have absolute mind boggingly massive monopolies across different fields, the middle classes in many countries are seriosly suffering, corporations don't give a shit for any externalities such as addiction or the environment or the truth, the young have no bright future in sight.
The answer is an actually functioning democracy with proper immune system that prevents wealth & power centralization over time, and has honest 3rd party sources of truth.
I see where you're coming from and I hear you - it seems a profoundly unsatisfactory state of affairs!
That said, he's not a dictator just because we don't like the result.
There was an election, Erdogan won it.
We can say 'he controlled the media' - maybe true - but that accusation could easily be levelled at democracies everywhere. The reality is democratic systems are flawed, like any system of human design. We cannot abstract democracy into a standard which can never be achieved. He is the democratically elected leader of Turkey, in Turkey-style democratic system. We can argue about how bad a leader he is as a separate matter!
Yeah, I get your point. It was a super shady election, with a lot of examples we could talk about, but I think that would be missing the point.
I wanna zoom on couple of your points:
1. "democratic systems are flawed, like any system of human design"
2. "We cannot abstract democracy into a standard which can never be achieved"
What could the solution look like? A benevolent dictator, implemented an AI god, is the first obvious "solution" that comes to mind, but feels dubious, for the same obvious reasons haha. Do you have deeper thoughts about the matter?
sure. ChatGPT (free version) could be swapped in for government, and would immediately be superior. It's discomforting because we lack maturity, like kids being scared of the dark
