A big discussion in the Turkey Coup thread right now.
What's better?
1. a democratically-elected government... even if it morphs into a populist elected-dictatorship that increasingly tries to consolidate power, oppresses free speech and the media and ethnic/religious minorities, treats women differently, and demolishes the separation of religion/government by making government lean more theocratic
That's not democracy. No one's saying Erdogan is particularly democratic. But starting an event which is pretty much guaranteed to result in deaths of innocent people and risks tipping your country into a civil war is the act of a murderer, and pretty stupid to boot.
What is fascinating about the Turkish situation is that apparently the Turkish Constitution places the responsibility of maintaining a secular democratic government in the hands of the military. Perhaps the real question is whether or not maintaining the Constitution takes precedence over a democratic vote.
John Bolton summarized things as follows:
Poll
