Cihan Tuğal is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. His books include Passive Revolution and The Fall of the Turkish Model.
Donald Trump’s second term could empower the organized far right much more than the first. Its current mobilizing strength suggests it’s far from ready to take over the state apparatus — but it does have opportunities to build a dangerous threat.
Ukrainian elites have for decades been divided between Westernized professionals and pro-Russian oligarchs, each with a narrow social base. The missing force has been the working class, unable to develop its own distinct project for the country’s future.
The coup against Erdoğan failed, but that doesn’t mean democracy was preserved.