Thread by @matt_cam

I've been thinking a lot about this call today.

This referendum is the point at which the world pretty much agrees that Turkey became a fully authoritarian regime. The EU condemned Erdogan. Trump went out of his way to personally congratulate him.

Why?

reuters.com/article/us-tur…

I mean, ofc I know why. I'm not actually asking why. I'm asking what we can learn from it, what it means for us as we feel the gentle slope toward American fascism get ever slipperier beneath us.

Knowing what happened next in Turkey might be instructive.

The referendum--barely noticed by Americans, AFAIK--was a classic authoritarian move, narrowly (51%!) approved by largely rural, religious Turkish voters suspicious of urban elites. Erdogan played hard to the most extreme right, all too familiar stuff

huffpost.com/entry/turkey-r….

Turkey was already in a state of emergency by that point, and had been for the nine months since the failed coup which every Turkish citizen I've ever met believes Erdogan was either responsible for or allowed to happen to consolidate his power

independent.co.uk/news/world/eur…

W/in months of the referendum, journalists, intellectuals, political reformers, etc were all placed on lists of enemies of the regime which were publicly published. Their assets and passports were seized. Many were jailed in terrible conditions (incl. torture) w/o due process

Allegations of support for exiled spiritual leader Fethullah Gulen became enough for Erdogan's regime to destroy anyone. Mass arrests became increasingly common. Gulen was accused of orchestrating a deep state which needed to be cleansed from the country.

reuters.com/article/us-tur…

The Gulen movement preaches only peace, tolerance, & education. It poses no threat to any open democratic society--but a direct one to a regime like Erdogan's. Their actual values are irrelevant for his purposes; they're merely the enemy of convenience which every fascist needs

I've worked with a few Turkish asylum seekers now, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about some of the things they all told me.

How quickly everything changed. How terrifying ordinary life suddenly became. How your friends & neighbors would shun you once you made a list

Ataturk's ideals of modern secular government created a more progressive nation than the U.S. in many respects. It effectively stopped executions in 1984 & formally abolished the death penalty 20 yrs later. It elected a female prime minister in 1993. It has free public healthcare

It is kind of astonishing how many Americans quietly believe that we simply *couldn't* go the way of Erdogan's Turkey, Putin's Russia, Duterte's Philippines.

At this point it's hard for me to believe we won't.

theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/…

Every single thing that fascism needs to flourish is more than present in the United States of America as we head into the final months of 2020: economic collapse, social unrest, intractable divisions, widespread distrust of media/science/experts in favor of conspiracy thinking

We all know that our country as we have known it is over, even if we haven't found a way to put it into words yet. Trump was elected on the promise to maintain white supremacy uber alles; Biden is offering a gentler, more medicated decline as Trump doubles down on the violence

Trump was the only leader of a "democratic" nation to call a man who had just consolidated power almost entirely under executive rule in an election which he almost certainly nudged (if not rigged) to a win *to congratulate him*--presumably w/some envy.

Don't ever forget that

The U.S. has no natl referendum process & a Constitution which is near-impossible to amend. But I'm not saying that Trump will use Erdogan's playbook here.

Per Paxton, it is more accurate to refer to fascism as unique "fascisms" which fit the mold of their national containers.

I don't think voting will be enough. But it is the one thing that (most) U.S. citizens can actually do, so let's start with that and do whatever we can to prepare for what follows if & when that doesn't work. See you out there.