[from]

Anybody else tired of hearing about the woes of the "opposition" in all these 2nd/3rd world countries? They're always framed by journalists as these heroic freedom fighters, uncorruptible, etc but in reality it seems like they just want the proceeds of looting to go to themselves and their party instead of the current people in power. Barrow may be a better than Jammeh in the Gambia but not by very much, Aung San Suu Kyi let the Rohingya genocide happen, Alpha Conde was supposed to bring "democracy" to Guinea but ignored term limits and killed a bunch of protestors, etc. Just a different cast of thieving fools.

[retinaros]

I agree with your comment but comparin erdogan to those leader is not really fair. what he did for turkey development makes him likely the greatest leader of this era maybe next to merkel and putin. turkey is a top 20 world economy with highly strategic assets, big land, leader in drones, building nuclear reactors, having electronic conglomerates. this is in no way a 2nd or 3rd world country. most of its major cities are more developed and safe than suburbs of philly or chicago. in 10 years they will likely have western european living standards.

[tptacek]

I don't know what you think the suburbs of Chicago are like, but they're among the highest standards of living in the world. (I assume this is the case for Philadelphia as well, but I'm less familiar with any part of the metro area other than Malvern.)

[retinaros]

https://youtu.be/MhvvxoIgNPg sure it is

[kasey_junk]

Perhaps you are using “suburbs” differently than an American would? I don’t know Philly geography but that certainly appears to be a tour of a dense part of Philly and not what I’d call a suburb.

Similarly here is a video touring some Chicago suburbs: https://youtu.be/Ngv70I82rP4

One thing I will say is that at least in Chicago there is a pretty wide divergence between suburbs (Chicagoland is nearly 30k km2 area so that’s not surprising). But for instance you’ll see pretty significantly different wealth levels in Markham than Tinley Park even though they are reasonably close to each other.

[csomar]

They ride on dissatisfaction. People in the West think that Erdogan is hated because he is a dictator. In reality, he has a strong base that he lost because the Lira (Turkish currency) fell too much. Sure some people don't like his conservative stance but most of Turkey is religious.

The reality is that the opposition has little to offer in terms of economical success. They are already promising to kick out the Arabs which many of them are investors in order to rally national sentiments. It's kind of predictable how this will go. In a few years, Erdogan will be back to power.

[esafak]

Don't lump countries together.

[from]

Is there any reason to think that this Kılıçdaroğlu guy is immune to the environment and all the pressures that create people like Erdogan? There are a million other examples of what I described above. Maybe he'll be different but I don't think there's any reason to assume he's anything special.

[esafak]

He's a known quantity, and he's anything but dictatorial. You couldn't find a softer candidate if you tried.