Well, you could say that the United States is run by a similar person. That does mean all of the U.S. is like that?
Istanbul does have a good intellectual atmosphere. Izmir too.
I'm not going to say it's all fine over here, but it's perfect for a digital nomad. Istanbul, especially places like Besiktas and Kadikoy are perfect.
No, you really couldn't. While the US democratic system is augmented by a very strong executive position, he still is only the executive of the system with fairly robust checks and balances in place (which seems to be working despite intense tire kicking).
US is not run by the president.
This quora answer seems a pretty good 101 on the issue:
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-US-not-a-parliamentary-syst...
Just because a person tweets like an ex-wrestler turned autocrat does not make him so.
Trump is just an error in the system, a person that is incapable of following the rituals and gain advantage of a low-profile attitude.
The civic quality of the Turkish system has quite a troubled history. Turkey's government has been held at a gunpoint by it's military for decades:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
"systemic corruption in the USA has been prevalent for almost a century"
I think that needs a quotation. US history is filled with genocide, empire building and after the 1970's, funnelling the profits from the economy from the employees to the capital owners. That, however, is not the same thing as corruption.
We're not discussing who is 'good' or 'bad', but comparing the quality and nature of institutions on the national level.
Certainly the couple of military coups there I know of seemed to rapidly result in establishing a strongly democratic constitution and a group of representatives to whom the assumed power could be handed over to.
Not that this is a bad thing. I don't see any reason for the great design & engineering talent in Istanbul to stay there, while the ruling government treats anybody who's not a part of their clientele (conservative, xenophobic, nationalist, authoritarian) like cockroaches. Considering they're only getting 51% even with the massive, massive practical broadcast power the ruling governments get, that's a lot of people.
So we vote. In the best way. With our feet.
Funnily enough, even Erdogan is realising that Turkey is losing a massive amount of talent on a month-to-month basis, in that it's been in a few of his speeches imploring people to come back lately. Apparently he realised when we're all gone, and when the construction / inflated real estate boom stops (which it did a few months ago, and the economy is in free fall right now), the only people who actually produce value are the people he did his best to alienate and scare out of the country. I believe his literal words in a national speech were: "Like, or leave" ("Ya sev, ya terket").
So we did, and I'm now paying my tax bill to the Internal Revenue Service of the United States, instead of Vergi Idaresi, and you know what? USA treats me with a lot more dignity and respect than Turkey ever did.
Turkey is going to starve (hopefully only figuratively) before it gets better, and I don't have a big problem with that. There's no teacher for authoritarians like it.