Turkish President Erdogan Reeling After His Country Hands Him His Ass

"For many Turkish voters, including some longstanding supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, enough was enough.

Mr. Erdogan followed a familiar script throughout the election campaign, using the language of Islam to whip up support among his religious base and denouncing critical voices as enemies of the state. His most ardent supporters lauded him as a figure almost as consequential as the Prophet Muhammad himself, deepening many Turks’ sense that a personality cult had enveloped their president.

“He thought previous formulas he had used — painting the opposition as terrorists, traitors and infidels, and throwing in Israel and the interest lobby and the big bad West — would work,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a Turkish columnist and analyst for CNN Turk. “But people had heard of this for a long time, and they were tired.”

Now Turkish voters have spoken. Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (known by its Turkish initials, A.K.P.) has lost its majority in Parliament, and his iron grip on Turkish politics has loosened, even though he himself was not on the ballot."

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Cenk Uygur (), host of The Young Turks, breaks it down.

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