"He could have been overthrown in the next elections"
Let me see if Erdogan can be overthrown in the next elections in Turkey. No US involvement either.
If you live in a stable Western country, your trust in the next elections being fair and free is understandable, but in that case, refrain from any authoritative talk ("your arguments don't matter") about other places. In recent democracies that transitioned from totalitarian rule just a decade or two ago, elections are far easier to hijack than in the UK or Denmark.
"no-one would have batted an eye"
You cannot really make such a strong prediction about places like Ukraine, the Balkans, the Middle East etc. These are places where empires collide, and several crises in a century are almost a given.
Anyway I am fairly glad that Ukraine didn't end up like Belarus did, a satellite state of Moscow. Anything is better than becoming a satellite state of Moscow. Most of us from behind the Iron Curtain would rather fight a war than submit to Moscow again.
Interestingly, the Western leftists, who otherwise preach anti-colonialism from breakfast to sunset and then some, don't understand the same dynamic among white-majority nations. But it is still there.