I think in the West Erdogan gets scrutinized more so than other authoritarian leaders because he embraces his identity as a Muslim the way someone like Morsi is scrutinized more than Sisi despite the latter clearly being a far more brutal authoritarian. And Erdogan is IMO not really worse than the Turkish military elite that ruled the country before him, really there's a strong argument that he's better given the positive economic and democratic reforms he made early on. And there's the fact that the brutality of the secular military elite, like their disappearances of thousands of young Kurds in the 90s, tends to get overlooked just as it is elsewhere in the Muslim world.
And not only that but people exaggerate how much of an Islamist he is. He uses Islamic identity politics to win elections but its not like he's trying to bring Sharia law to the country, the most Islamic changes he made was lift bans of the hijab in certain public spaces. The fact that those bans existed in the first place is ridiculous, you had more freedom to wear hijab in America than in Turkey before Erdogan. He also uses pan-Islamism in his foreign policy to build relations with the Muslim countries in the region but he's far more of a Turkish nationalist than he gets credit for.
However he does deserve a lot of the criticism, especially since the coup attempt though he first showed his authoritarian colors with the Gezi park protests. After the coup the country really got behind him, even some of his critics supported him as they wanted to put the history of coups behind them. It was funny at the time reading social media comments by Westerners supporting the coup while actual Turkish people condemned it. But instead of using that moment to unite the country he used it as a pretext to crackdown on dissent like a true autocrat. I very much believe that the Gulen movement he blames the coup on does have power in the country but whatever truth there is to that CT its almost certainly exaggerated as a pretext to crush legitimate criticism and dissent. I wish he died in 2012 a hero than live long enough to become the villain but oh well.
Yeah same here which is why I was skeptical at first. But you don't seemt the type to make those accusations lightly so I'll take your word over the likes of the Indian and Pakistani Muslims I know tbh.
Its funny to see right wingers defend the citizenship law in the WR when its basically the Indian version of what they accuse Democrats of doing; handing out citizenship to migrants from neighboring countries based on their identity with the effect of increasing his base.
