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Turkeys neo-sultan managed to swing the April 16 constitutional referendum in his favor, but its a precarious, illegitimate win and he knows it. The question now is how President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will handle his biggest domestic threat, a woman no less, who has refused to join his political harem, drawing support or, at the very least, respect from unlikely quarters.

Meral Aksener, a 60-year-old seasoned politician and former Turkish interior minister, fired up the campaign trail in the lead-up to the April 16 constitutional referendum. Her rallies calling on Turks to reject Erdogans proposed constitutional amendments drew thousands of worshipful supporters who, like her, defied threats and intimidation to make their voices heard. Braving mid-speech power cuts, using battery-powered megaphones, disobeying demonstration bans by local ruling party officials, powering through thugs from her own erstwhile ultranationalist party mucking about her rallies, Aksener thundered on like a tank, as one of her female supporters at a rally put it.

She has been dubbed Asena, the she-wolf of Turkish mythology who gave birth to 10 half-human, half-wolf males. When accused of the most heinous catch-all political sin in Turkey today belonging to exiled cleric and alleged coup plotter Fethullah Gulens movement Aksener brushes it off with the no-nonsense brusqueness of a Turkish grandmother.

Its worth combing through all these labels, plaudits, and allegations, since Aksener is a complex character whose political roots mirror the multilayered diversity of contemporary Turkish politics and that, in essence, is what makes her a potent threat to Erdogan.

She is a grandmother, a nationalist some would say ultranationalist and a political warrior. She is not a Gulenist or a member of FETO (Fethullah Gulen Terrorist Organization) as the Turkish government loves to call any of its detractors if it cant plausibly accuse them of being Kurdish terrorists. She is not pro-Kurdish, of course; as a fervent nationalist, she has no love for Kurds who reject the wisdom of crushing their identity to become model Turks. The antipathy is mutual. Shes not an Islamist. But she is a self-declared pious Muslim, and her links to one of the forebears of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) honchos plus her resistance to the military meddling in politics in the 1990s lends her serious cred among the Islamist set.

As for that florid comparison to the she-wolf Asena, it does have some lupine consistency: Aksener leads a breakaway faction of the ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) whose youth wing, the Grey Wolves, has a decades-long tradition of fascist violence.

Over the past few months, one of the more disturbing signs on the referendum campaign trail was the frequent display of the Grey Wolves gesture at AKP rallies supporting the Yes vote. A hand sign representing a wolf head made by holding up the index and little fingers while touching the thumb to the middle two digits, the Grey Wolves sign is seen as a Turkish equivalent of the Nazi salute. Under current MHP leader Devlet Bahceli, the party has been reformed, though the wolverine sign remains commonplace.

But it remains a disquieting display and a disturbing reminder of the unlikely alliances Erdogan has had to forge to get those sweeping presidential powers he has been seeking for so long.

Erdogans constitutional referendum train took to the rails in January when the president, riding a patriotic wave after the July 2016 coup attempt, managed to get parliamentary approval for a raft of 18 article amendments swapping Turkeys parliamentary system for a presidential one. He secured a parliamentary majority for the measure by the skin of his teeth, only after he secured MHP support. Bahceli, the raspy-voiced leader of the MHP, was an unlikely convert to Erdogans executive presidency gospel: The aging ultranationalist had long dismissed it as a system with no balances, no checks, and no brakes and a sultanate with no throne.

But in the end, there were no brakes on Bahcelis political machinations. Erdogan had helped Bahceli stave off a party leadership challenge by Aksener. The AKP strongman managed that by getting one of the countrys ever-pliant courts to rule against Akseners leadership bid. A former MHP senior official told the Economist that his former boss may have been offered a cabinet post after the 2019 elections. Deals were done, favors had to be returned; its the usual palace intrigue of Turkish politics today.

Aksener ferociously opposed Erdogans bid to scrap the system Turkeys founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, enshrined nearly a century ago. She was one of the most effective No campaigners in the lead-up to the April 16 vote, and shes still keeping up the fight. Her Twitter posts after Sundays vote reassured supporters that she is contesting the referendum results while calling on them to take to the streets.

In a strange way, the latest twist in the Turkish presidents unbridled power grab has been good for Aksener, and therein lies the biggest chink in Erdogans political armor. It comes not from the liberal, secular left that part of the political spectrum has been effectively crushed by Erdogans crackdowns on the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) and the main secular opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) but from the nationalist right. This aspect tends to get overlooked in the international press, which limits itself to viewing Turkey primarily in a binary bind between conservative Islamists on one side and secular elites on the other the trite, old Black Turks versus White Turks dichotomy.

But theres more to Turkey today than meets the eye.

Akseners meteoric rise and the way she has managed to worm her way into the mainstream from the fascist, ultranationalist fringe is spectacular indeed.

Gender, for once, has been her biggest asset; the fact that she has managed to stick it to the boys in the macho world of Turkish conservative politics has earned her the love of some and the grudging respect of many others.

And nowhere is this girl-power play more evident than in her grasp of the symbolism of the hand gesture.

A good-looking woman with stylishly cropped hair set off by de rigueur pearl drop earrings, Aksener favors the sort of pantsuit ensembles made famous by fellow power granny Hillary Clinton. In the old days, especially during her high-profile breakup with the MHP, she was wont to flash the Grey Wolves sign at mass rallies. But over the past few months, that has given way to holding up her palm adorned with a henna imprint of the Turkish flag. During a TV interview, she explained that some of her young grassroots volunteers came up with the idea. By all accounts, it worked. With the post-coup press clampdowns ensuring that Turkish media barely covered the No campaign, Akseners henna flag went viral on social media.

Her former boss, the aging Bahceli, who has been facing the heat from his nationalist base for his tryst with the political devil, publicly disparaged her henna sign. Big mistake. Social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram exploded with all sorts of people elderly veiled women, young soldiers, grizzled granddads beaming with a henna flag on their palms. The hashtag #KinaliEllerHayirDiyor or Hennaed Hands Say No (to a constitutional change) trended for days. (Across swaths of Western and South Asia, henna is traditionally used as a feminine adornment and is especially important during marriage ceremonies when it signifies new beginnings.) In the Anatolian heartland, young soldiers going off to war also hennaed their palms in a display of warrior devotion. On International Womens Day, March 8, some of the womens rights advocates marching down Istanbuls iconic Istiklal Street flashed flag-hennaed palms. One of them told Al-Monitor, We will send henna powder to the leaders. They need it to remember the ordinary people will always find ways of peaceful resistance.

Resist she has, in a spectacular way. At a campaign rally in the northwestern Turkish town of Tekirdag, she blasted an AKP smear campaign labeling her a Gulenist. They should look to their right, they will see many Gulenist friends and relatives, she said. They should look to their left, they will also see many Gulenist friends and relatives. And then they should look in the mirror to see the real Gulenists. The crowd roared. Erdogans falling out with Gulen, his former Islamist ally who helped bring him to power, has seen an estimated 130,000 people suspended and sacked from public sector jobs, which are being filled by hastily hired, often unqualified candidates, many of them from other Islamist groups. The nationalists are concerned about the economic downturn, and Aksener has hammered home her message that the neo-sultan is fiddling in his Ottoman castle, picking fights with EU allies while the Turkish economy burns.

Her rejection of Erdogans power grab tapped into the deep disapproval among MHP supporters for a constitutional amendment. According to one Turkish pollster, only 35 percent of MHP voters cast a Yes ballot in Sundays poll. That razor-thin Yes win is not just the secular leftist and Kurdish rejection of the Turkish president; it also reflects the nationalists disenchantment with their own leaders and with Erdogan, despite his attempts to woo the nationalist base. In recent years, the MHP has seen its popularity drop in the polls, with the party losing 39 parliamentary seats (from 80) between the June and November 2015 elections.

Bahcelis cronies may still support their party chief. But the party rank and file would like to see a new, dynamic leader if only Erdogan, the consummate political player, would let that happen. But Erdogan will not, of course, not if he can help it, because the Iron Lady of Turkish politics is his biggest political rival on the horizon.

Despite the referendum loss, Aksener is well-placed to make inroads into Erdogans Islamist base. A pious Muslim who frequently mentions that she prays five times a day, she was interior minister in the coalition government led by Islamist granddaddy Necmettin Erbakan until the military dismissed her as a result of what is called the February 1997 postmodern coup. Her resistance to the military made her a national figure, earning her the respect of many pro-democracy Turks from different political backgrounds. The events of February 1997 are still alive in the Turkish collective memory, and Aksener is politician enough to grab every opportunity to remind audiences particularly Islamists who felt persecuted by the military in the 1990s of her pro-democracy creds.

She has also touted a softer version of Turkish nationalism than the old MHP boys, and that could lend her some tactical if not necessarily ideological appeal among Turkeys battered leftist-secularists desperate for any political figure who can defeat Erdogan. Since the April 16 referendum, the Ankara rumor mill has been on overdrive about the Turkish Iron Ladys plans to form a new political party. She is the ideal candidate to unite conservative voters, secular voters, and a large portion of the nationalist vote, notes Paris-based Turkish journalist Emre Demir. There are persistent rumors that she will create a new center-right party, which can bring together the old AKP figures that Erdogan has sidelined, a number of center-right figures, as well as nationalist figures ejected by Bahceli. If that happens, it could be the only party that can threaten Erdogans one-party rule.

Aksener herself says very little and just enough to keep the political suspense at boiler pitch. They all talk about Mr. Erdogan. What if I am the countrys next president? she famously asked a BBC reporter. Her supporters at rallies are known to chant Prime Minister Meral, a cry that must surely gall Erdogan ahead of the October 2019 general elections.

The interesting thing now is how Erdogan will respond to the threat posed by this political she-wolf who has refused to be co-opted or silenced. He could treat her like he did his erstwhile biggest rival, the charismatic Kurdish HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas: toss her in jail. But it wont be as easy to imprison a popular nationalist as it is to throw a Kurdish politician behind bars in Turkey. Her hardcore supporters can unleash rowdy havoc on the streets, and they are just the sort of shock troops Erdogan himself uses when he needs a thug act or two. And then, dont forget Erdogan is an Islamist. If he has to put a devout Turkish Muslim granny as opposed to a godless Kurdish woman behind bars, it wont sit well with his religious base. The sultan has swung many impossible political flips in the past, but this gladiator fight, whichever way it goes, will be a treat to witness.

Photo credit:ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images

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Can the 'She-Wolf' Who Rejected the Harem Take On Sultan Erdogan? - Foreign Policy (blog)

A wealthy Turkish-Iranian gold trader facing U.S. charges that he helped Iran evade U.S. sanctions for sponsoring terrorism has an unlikely ally: Rudy Giuliani.

Its a surprising role for Giuliani, who was dubbed "Americas Mayor" for his uncompromising response to the 2001 terrorist attacks as mayor of New York. An early supporter of President Donald Trump, Giuliani has helped him search for a legal way to ban Muslim immigrants and served as an informal adviser, tasked with building private sector partnerships on cyber-security.

Now, Giuliani has joined a star-studded roster of lawyers representing Reza Zarrab, who is accused of using his network of companies to launder hundreds of millions of dollars through the U.S. financial system to aid the mullahs in Tehran. In a court filing last week, Giuliani said hes met with senior officials in the U.S. and Turkey, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in an effort to broker a deal that might benefit Zarrab and bolster U.S. national-security interests.

At a hearing Monday, U.S. District Judge Richard Berman asked lawyers for updated information about what their firms have been doing on behalf of the Turkish government in the U.S.

Michael Lockard, a government prosecutor, stressed the gravity of the charges, saying Giuliani and Mukasey had soft-pedaled the seriousness of the case in court filings. Lockard said the evidence would show Zarrab personally offered his services to circumvent sanctions to Irans then-president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and paid tens of millions of dollars to high-level banking officials to help carry out the scheme.

"What is charged in this case is a serious national-security offense," Lockard said.

Zarrabs unorthodox defense strategy is drawing scrutiny and comparisons to other cases, where the U.S. took a hard line on companies accused of violating sanctions or moving Irans money. David Kelley, a former U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said prosecutors cherish their independence, removed from politics and foreign-policy considerations, and blanch at any suggestion that a criminal case might be compromised.

"Theyre looking to resolve a criminal case through political means," he said of Giuliani and another Zarrab lawyer, former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Their actionsrun the risk of politicizing the Justice Department, and every time that happens in one form or another, there are serious consequences and fallout from it, added Kelley, whos not involved in the case.

Click here for more on the Zarrab case

Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan until he was fired last month, appeared to be voicing the same worry in a tweet last week: "One just hopes that the rule of law, and its independent enforcement, still matters in the United States and at the Department of Justice." Prosecutors on the case have also demanded to know what Giuliani is up to.

The case has roiled diplomatic relations with Turkey, where Erdogan assailed Bharara for bringing the charges against Zarrab, his close associate. Once a staunch U.S. ally, Turkey has drifted away from the West as Erdogan has grown more autocratic and friendly toward Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump was one of the few world leaders to congratulate Erdogan on his recent win of a referendum giving sweeping powers to the president.

In their court filing, Giuliani andMukasey said senior officials in the U.S. and Turkey remain receptive to a deal that could promote the security of the U.S. They said the willingness of the U.S. to negotiate is not surprising because the alleged scheme involved consumer goods, not nuclear technology or other contraband, and that they had briefed both Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Bharara in general terms before their trip to Turkey in February.

It remains to be seen whether the Justice Department will agree to a deal for Zarrab, whos being held in a Manhattan lockup. Erdogans talks with Vice President Joe Biden in September failed to win the traders freedom. Richard Holwell, a former federal judge in New York, said its not unusual for lawyers for influential defendants to seek a political resolution to a case, but its rare for such maneuvering to succeed because the Justice Department resists the politicization of law enforcement.

"There are sometimes lawyers in the courtroom talking to the judge and prosecutors, and then there is a separate line of communication at the diplomatic level," said Holwell. "The idea that Messrs. Giuliani and Mukasey would pay a visit to Erdogan doesnt surprise me. The only thing that surprises me is whether Zarrab is that valuable a piece in the game that Erdogan would be interested in communicating with those in the U.S."

Yet the lawyers politicking has clearly raised concerns for Judge Berman.

In a sense, the judges raising this conflict-of-interest question is a back door way into getting more information from Zarrabs team, said Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. "The judge is flying blind on whats going on here.

Emanuele Ottolenghi of the Foundation forDefense of Democracies,a Washington-based think tank that has advised lawmakers writing Iran sanctions legislation, said its understandable why the Turkish government would press for a deal.

"The Zarrab case is going to be a treasure trove for people who study sanctionsevasion," said Ottolenghi. "We will learn a lot about Zarrab, but also weregoing to learn about how complicit Turkey was as a whole in allowing Iran toevade sanctions. The potential embarrassment and fallout in this case is so vastthat it is hard to put a tag on it."

Zarrab, who denies wrongdoing, is accused of using his multibillion-dollar network of companies in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to induce U.S. banks to launder money through transactions that violated international sanctions against Iran. He was arrested in Miami after arriving in the U.S. for a family trip.

Prosecutors also say Zarrab played an active role helping to finance an Iranian airline, Mahan Air. The airline is a material supporter of the Iranian National Guards Quds Force, a sponsor of terrorism, the U.S. says. Treasury officials said Mahan Air has covertly flown personnel on planes without including them on passenger manifests, including in and out of Syria and Iraq, and ferried weapons for Quds and Hezbollah.

Starting in 2015, prosecutors say Zarrab began processing transactions on behalf of a Dubai-based company called Ascot General Trading that served as a front for Mahan to avoid blockades in the financial system. Over the next month, prosecutors say he handled millions of dollars in transactions for the company, some of which passed through New York banks.

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In a related case, prosecutors last month charged Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a senior manager at Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS, a large state-owned bank, with conspiring with Zarrab. Prosecutors cited recorded conversations between Atilla and Zarrab in 2013 which suggested that the two were intentionally trying to disguise transactions involving a Dubai company in such a way that Western banks would approve funding. Atilla denies wrongdoing.

The case may have grown out of similar prosecution in Turkey in 2013 that connected Zarrabs transactions with Iran to payments to senior government officials in Ankara. In 2014, Erdogan dismissed investigators involved in the case, and charges against Zarrab and members of Erdogans government were eventually dismissed.

The case is U.S. v. Reza Zarrab, 15-cr-867, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

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Giuliani's Talk With Erdogan Adds Mystery to U.S. Sanctions Case ... - Bloomberg

Originally posted in The Progressive, April 20, 2017

Declaring victory in the recent plebiscite granting him extraordinary powers, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan consolidated his authoritarian rule. A new constitutional amendment abolishes the countrys parliamentary system and gives the once-weak executive almost unlimited authority. It passed in the midst of a state of emergency imposed after last years coup attempt.

Since the failed coup, Erdogan has jailed 45,000 political opponents, including the head of the countrys third largest party and other parliamentarians. He has fired 130,000 government workers and thousands of teachers and journalists. One hundred seventy-six media outlets have been shut down. The censorship and intimidation of opponents made a free and fair referendum virtually impossible. European Union monitors, rather understatedly, noted that the vote took place on an unlevel playing field and the two sides of the campaign did not have equal opportunities.

Initially, it appeared that Erdogans referendum was headed toward defeat. A last-minute decision by Turkeys electoral board to accept ballots as valid without official stamps raised concerns of widespread ballot stuffing; EU monitors noted how these late changes in counting procedures removed an important safeguard to a credible vote tally.

In response, Erdogan claimed those questioning the results were engaging in a Crusader mentality and that they should know their place.

President Trump was virtually alone among world leaders in congratulating Erdogan on his victory. Along with recent decisions to curtail President Obamas limited restrictions on arms transfers to Bahrain, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern dictatorships, Trump is signaling to the region that the United States is no longer even pretending to support democracy.

Indeed, the United States has for decades provided unconditional support for Turkish authoritarianism, including the three times during past sixty years in which the Turkish military seized power and engaged in gross and systematic human rights abuses.

Erdogans appeal is based on his ability, like the Republicans, to convince millions of poor and working-class voters to vote against their class interests with appeals to nationalism, traditional religious values, fear of terrorism, and attacks on liberal secular urban elites. Indeed, the electoral map from the referendum looks remarkably similar to the map of the United States after the 2016 presidential election, with the rural areas voting yes while the urban areas and regions with large minority populations voted no.

Turkeys society is badly divided, with at least half the population opposed to the slide into authoritarianism under Erdogan. This opposition will likely get stronger.

The once-booming economy has slowed, as the United States and other Western countries have tightened credit. One out of every four young Turks are unemployed. In addition, tourism, a major contributor to the economy, has declined as Erdogans policies have simultaneously alienated Russians, Iranians, and Westerners.

Erdogan has reignited the war against the countrys Kurdish minority, jailing not just suspected militants, but nonviolent Kurdish leaders, including seventy mayors. His support for hard-line Islamist groups fighting the Syrian regimelike the U.S. support for Afghan mujahedeen fighting the Soviets during the 1980shas begun to backfire as Turkey has become a target of terrorist attacks from Salafist extremists.

As a result, it is extremely likely that Turkey will find itself riven with growing popular opposition to what is widely seen as an illegitimate autocratic government led by a dangerous and unpredictable demagogue. If the United States continues its policy of supporting its NATO ally despite the growing repression, it will end up alienating yet another group of Muslim people suffering under a U.S.-backed dictatorship.

Given the burgeoning Turkish civil society movement, along with Islamist extremists and Kurdish separatists emboldened by these developments, Turkey is likely headed for years of domestic turmoil.

The big question is whether the United States will eventually ally with the tens of millions of Turks resisting authoritarianism or if, once again, the United States will find itself on the wrong side of history.

Originally posted here:
Erdogan Can Celebrate the Turkish ReferendumFor Now - Huffington Post

Politics is proving to be a boon for Turkeys banks that may continue for months to come.

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First-quarter profit at Turkeys six largest banks, which will start reporting this week, is expected to jump by an average of 46 percent from a year earlier, according to Deutsche Bank AG. Lenders are benefiting from a raft of incentives brought in by President Recep Tayyip Erdogans administration that has led to a surge in lending, boosting the revenue the companies make from charging interest.

After this months narrow referendum victory, Erdogan is shifting his attention to general and presidential elections scheduled for November 2019 by trying to reignite an economy that has flagged in the wake of last Julys failed coup. Lenders have been among the biggest benefactors with tax breaks,looser banking regulations and a state-backed fund to encourage lending to businesses.

The government will continue measures to stimulate growth through banks as it pays back quicker than incentives given to industrial companies, said Deutsche Bank analyst Kazim Andac. Lira-denominated business loans, mainly through the Credit Guarantee Fund, were one of the major drivers of top-line strength in the first quarter.

Cagdas Dogan, a banking analyst at BGC Partners Inc. in Istanbul, revised higher his first-quarter profit estimates,mainly because of stronger-than-expected growth in lira-denominated loans, better returns from investments in inflation-linked bonds and risk-related costs that were lower than his initial estimates.

Our revised first-quarter earnings are around 10 percent higher than our original forecasts done after 2016 results, he said. Dogan expects an average increaseof 47 percent in net income for the six biggest publicly-traded lenders in the first quarter compared with the year-earlier period.

The nations credit boom will add as much as 1.5 percentage points to gross domestic product growth this year, Erdogans adviser Cemil Ertem said on Thursday. He criticized the International Monetary Funds 2017 growth estimate of 2.5 percent, predicting GDP will expand as much as 4.5 percent. He said that the Credit Guarantee Fund will be a catalyst for growth in 2018.

Were still on an election path, therefore the government will continue with incentives through 2018 and until the 2019 elections, which will be bank-positive, said Bulent Sengonul, a banking analyst at Is Yatirim Menkul Degerler AS in Istanbul.

The push to extend lending, sometimes at below market rates, doesnt come without risks. Non-performing loans will increase to 5 percent of total credit this year, from 3.3 percent, S&P Global Ratings said in report in February.

Still, banks will remain resilient should the economy weaken because their adequate asset quality, sufficient earnings, and good capitalization provide enough of a buffer to absorb any potential moderate volatility without damaging their financial profiles unduly, S&P said.

Annual loan growth quickened to 21.2 percent at the end of March, matching levels achieved in January that marked the quickest pace in 14 months, according to the banking regulator, known as the BDDK.

Banks have extended 137.3 billion liras ($37.7 billion) of loans to 186,131 businesses under theCredit Guarantee Fund program as of April 20, the Ankara-based fund said in an emailed response to questions. The government previously said that fund, known as KGF, will be able to back as much as 250 billion liras of loans.

Akbank TAS will be first to report earnings on April 25, followed by Garanti Bankasi AS a day later, and Yapi Kredi Bankasi AS on April 27. The countrys remaining lenders are expected to announce earnings by the end of the second week of May.

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Erdogan-Inspired Incentives Seen Boosting Turkish Bank Profits ... - Bloomberg

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan is massively expanding his own powers.

If it seems strange that Donald Trump telephoned an authoritarian to congratulate him on becoming more of an authoritarian, thats partly because we dont expect to see such bold displays of international solidarity among these mens ideological foes. Certainly their foes would not call themselves foes. After all, good liberals arent proud liberals.

Of course you could argue that it was just a business call, Trumps overture lastweek to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan. Youd be correct in pointing out that the family shop hawks rather a lot of goods in Turkey, including a couple of shiny towers. And its not like he hasnt tried this stunt before; one of Trumps first acts as president-elect was to chat with the president of Argentina on the phone, reportedly about whether Buenos Aires could please stop giving him such a hard time about building permits.

But never mind all that. If the most important leadership skill is knowing how to delegate, the United States can at least trust its leader to know he can always send his daughter off to play diplomat whenever it becomes imperative to score, say, a trademark in China and Japan.

So its not business. Not just business, anyway. Its personal. Trump called Erdogan because populist authoritarian strongmen tend to understand that its in their interests to promote their ideological friends.

Promoting authoritarianism can be a dry and discrete exercise in policy implementation. It may take the form of a regimes favourite fascist-leaning candidate abroad benefiting from the provision of support services support services that may be rendered by Kremlin-bankrolled hackers and bag men, for example.

But its often overt. Like most people, authoritarians may seek the company of those with whom they have things in common. This goes some way toward explaining Silvio Berlusconis bizarre friendship with Moammar Gaddafi. (Although, in addition to having a mutual aversion to basic democratic principles, the former prime minister and chief media mogul of Italy and the late brotherly leader and reigning nut-job of Libya also enjoyed a taste for underaged girls. Theirs was a relationship based on many shared interests.)

Even if strongmen dont genuinely like or respect each other, though, it may benefit them to pretend that they do. Like any idea, ideology or form of government, people probably wont buy authoritarianism unless its sold to them. Putin, Erdogan and Trump have made sure that theyre singing the same terrifying and mindnumbingly stupid jingle: Were being brought down by the (insert preferred scapegoat from list that includes immigrants, liberal ninnies and continental Europeans here).

The leaders of liberal democracies need to find a sales pitch that is at least this compelling. Then they have to find the courage to pitch it.

It seems to me that you can build a pretty convincing case around liberal convictions. It worked for some revolutionaries a long time ago, anyways, and then for some street demonstrators. Granted, they cant make their case in all the same ways that authoritarians can, such as congratulating a leader on particular referendum results; that would violate the democratic norms that authoritarians are attacking. But I suspect its mostly courage thats lacking.

Liberals may be, I think, the victim of their own mistaken interpretation of tolerance. Liberals value a respect for difference. This is admirable. But some may risk stereotyping the very societies they claim to tolerate, presuming these societies to be somehow inherently hostile to the most foundational principles of democracy and human rights, and to be lacking any internal advocates for them.

This is not admirable. Not only is this a tolerance nearly as ignorant as the racism and xenophobia it means to counter, but the one type of obtuseness accidentally affirms the other.

The people of Turkey and Russia are no less deserving of human rights and civil liberties than are the people of the United States; the people of the United States, no less susceptible to the call of authoritarianism. To counter this call, perhaps liberal democrats need to make more calls of their own.

ShannonGormleyisanOttawa Citizen global affairs columnist and freelance journalist.

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Gormley: Brutes of a feather flock together - Ottawa Citizen