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Comment by fracus | Hacker News Reader

Isn't this just the latest cut in your democracy's death by a thousand cuts?

I'd add also a thousand bullets, a thousand tortures, a thousand rapes, and a thousand days in prison for having a different opinion and expressing it.

Isn't it always?

Turkey has a rich history of coups. But when secular parts of the armed forces tried to oust Erdogan's regime by force in 2016, he didn't just fight them off but used the event as a justification to clean house and prevent these things altogether. He's pretty much following Putin's approach at solidifying his position. So 2016 was essentially the death blow to their democracy.

2016 wasn't secular coup. the last of few secular ones were in 2000s, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-memorandum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Justice_and_Development_P...

2016 was specifically because of Erdogan's anti-secular movements:

https://www.haber3.com/guncel/asker-trt-binasinda-iste-039da...

Much like America is taking a hit these days, only judges seem to care or be able to do anything. I was just having a bar discussion during happy hour how America is becoming a fascist country more in line with the way Turkey and India are, rather than Russia or Venezuela (more sudden)

Seems like for much of the world?

Sadly, yes. I'm not sure what it will take to make people realize that a "strong man" is not the answer.

I doubt, but wonder if it's a generational thing, like would the twenty somethings be into strongmen when they're the majority of voters?

I used to think the younger generation were a bit different but I've seen them pretty much obsess over MAGA, Joe Rogan et al. So more of the same I guess?

Human nature goes deep and doesnt change much across generations

Essentially, young people want change, old people want stability. The right in the US has been advertising in the direction of change so it's liked for it. Especially by young people doomscrolling about "property prices now vs before" and cartelgram/liveleakesque videos. Once you get older you get a stable job, family, etc so you're less nervous about life and have better things to do than to get your adrenaline up watching people get murdered.

Written from the perspective of someone who's started to get comfortable in life. Now I'm quite mild politically but I can go more right short term if I spend some time watching people get butchered by gangs/nutcases. Some of my friends still watch a lot of that and it definitely makes you very much like having a "capacity for violence". It's one of those things that's IMO good in moderation, since some paranoia is healthy but off the deep end it turns into "get them before they get me"esque genocidal ideas and scrolling the nazi army webm montages and gore threads on /gif/ / /b/ at 2AM.

> Essentially, young people want change, old people want stability

Old people have learned that change always means worse. Corruption is so big that it isn't really matter who is in power, the system functions as intended. (All over the world)

Not necessarily worse IMO but that it's a painful process for mediocre improvements.

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