NYT: “While secular and liberal Turks generally opposed the coup, it was Mr. Erdogan’s supporters who flooded the streets and gathered at Istanbul’s airport Saturday morning to push out the occupying army. They mostly yelled religious slogans and chants in support of Mr. Erdogan, not of democracy itself.’
There’s a moral at the end of this.
This para is from the NYT’s article a few days ago about the extraordinary lengths Erdogan’s gone to in his efforts to manipulate US foreign policy. To my eye, it suggests the writer has a hunch that the 2016 “coup” in Turkey wasn’t what it seemed but they can’t quite put a finger on it — or can’t quite say so. The NYT will remain totally committed to the coup because they and CNN were the two global outlets completely punked into providing breathless coverage. More than that, CNN was targeted: Erdogan, allegedly terrified for his life by a military coup of unknown dimensions, was flying around in circles giving CNN an exclusive via Facetime and encouraging them to continually broadcast the precise location of his plane. Without the legitimation of those two outlets, there would’ve been much more skepticism about that smattering of Truman Show battles. But don’t take my word for it: go look for photos of this “occupying army” at the Istanbul airport. It was 2016 at an airport: everyone can take pix and vids, right? But all you’ll find are a few isolated snaps from the same spot and the flimsiest account of a kerfuffle outside a VIP lounge. The other account went straight to the heart of the NYT, because it was by one of their opinion writers — Zeynep Tufekci. And who would dare doubt the word of a savvy TED-talking Turkish sociologist? No one. The joke: even she wouldn’t! Her column a few days later in the NYT (link below) is a priceless moment in the history of cognitive dissonance: basically, “Erdogan TOTALLY hated the internet and all that democracy sh*t until RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF A COUP he suddenly realized he could use it to save himself — isn’t the internet awesome?!?!” Cool story, bro.
This is the kind of bullsh*t we need to watch out for in the US coming up.