Also, not all people protesting on the streets are protesting for Erdogan, lots of them are simply protesting against a military coup that is trying to overthrow an elected government (whether they like this particular government or not).

While it sounds like a joke coming from Erdogan, with his "ambivalent" relationship to democracy, asking the people to go to the squares and streets is asking them to defend a democracy.

Sadly, either outcome still leaves Turkey less democratic and less stable than before. As it currently seems, Erdogan is going to have more power than ever before with all his adversaries purged from the military.

It's disturbing that leaders (political or religious) would put their constituents in harms way.

I keep reading that Erdogan is popular, but I also read that he was elected with only 13% of the vote.

> It's disturbing that leaders (political or religious) would put their constituents in harms way.

Like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r73p95I-eE

Or like in any military force, unless there was coercion going on here.

It's one thing to bring a military force to a battle. It's another thing entirely to call out unarmed civilians to deter a military force.

In both cases, the core of the matter is exposing oneself to danger for some higher cause.

He was elected with 51.8% of the vote, with a 13.4% lead over his competitor. The 13% of the vote thing is pure misinformation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_presidential_election,...

> put their constituents in harms way.

Such is the way of leaders throughout history. For instance, Rev. Dr. King deliberately had teenagers get assaulted with dogs, water cannon, and truncheons as a tactic for getting media attention.

Gonna need a source for that.

Hmmm, it occurs to me that I don't actually have a good introductory source for someone new to learning about the US civil rights movement of the 50s/60s.