Have you ever watched Game of Thrones or seen an episode of House of Cards?
Chances are you have. And chances are while watching you’ve picked up on the disturbing levels of calculated, cutthroat ruthlessness required to wield powers at the highest levels of society. In fact, you’ve probably learned to make those calculations ahead of time for each character while watching.
So, it shouldn’t surprise you that while posts of shock and outrage over the Capitol riot flooded Instagram stories and Facebook feeds, smart Machiavellian politicians immediately recognized that what was unfolding was a near best-case outcome for Democrats.
Don’t believe me? Here’s just a partial list of the fallout since:
In two days, Democrats hit two home runs. First, they won both senate seats in Georgia, giving them a slim majority via the Vice-Presidential tiebreaker. Then the obliteration of Trump on Wednesday, that ended in his cowering video message telling the rioters to go home.
If this were a sporting event how much would Democrats be up by? Honestly something like 100-0 sounds right.
Now let me be clear, what happened at the Capitol last week was first and foremost terrible for our country, but I’m not going to spend your time reading, or my time writing moral judgments that are obvious to 100% of my social circle.
For some time our country’s politics have been stuck in what historian’s call a “lose-lose” mutually threatening relationship. This relationship is characterized primarily by each side thinking about how they can hurt the other in hope of forcing the other into a position of fear in order to get what they want.
(For more historical context and analysis on the current state of U.S. I highly recommend reading Ray Dalio’s recent articles The Cycle of Internal Order and Disorder & Where We Are in It and Delving into the Six Stages of the Internal Cycle with a Particular Focus on the US Now.)
That lose-lose relationship came to a head on Wednesday when Trump tried to force Pence to reject the electoral voters. Pence rightly refused, and Democrats dominated the ensuing “lose-lose” exchange.
Extremists breached the Capitol, causing a short insurrection, but they failed to do more than delay the electoral college, which was certified late that night. Meanwhile images of extremist white men storming the Capitol flooded social media.
By the end of the day Trump was destroyed and the GOP crippled. What’s left is a party split between die hard Trump supporters and those who no longer support the president.
This necessitates, by the very nature of politics, a gain for Democrats.
The question before our nation now is how to turn from a politics of “lose-lose” to a politics of “win-win,” competing like two teams would at the Olympics, allowed to beat but not destroy the other.
Many are desperate for a more uniform social fabric, even if it is the mere appearance of one. Fights simply don’t happen when there are big asymmetries in power. Democrats controlling all three branches of the federal government should help with that as they can dominate U.S. politics until at least the midterms in 2022.
What’s unclear is if this uniformity will be a short-lived swing of the pendulum with ever increasing stakes, or if Democrat control will be the“new normal.” Viewed through history, the increasing disorder in our society is not sustainable. The intensifying conflict between our two factions has reached a tipping point.
My Time in Turkey as a Case-Study
In 2016 I lived through a tipping point when a failed military coup against Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan allowed him and his political allies to consolidate power across all branches of government, accelerating a purge of his political rivals that was the impetus for the coup in the first place.
Like the United States, Turkey is a highly polarized society. It’s split roughly 50-50 between secularists, who want to see Turkey look more like the west and populist religious conservatives who want to see amore Islamic Turkey.
If you visit Turkey today you might see a woman with her hair down who later that night will drink alcohol and go to the club, pass by a religious conservative who does not think she should have those rights.
Since 2016, those dynamics have changed although less than sensationalists might have you imagine. The clubs are still open and alcohol still available for purchase, but there has been increasing violence towardsLGBT, which led a gay couple I stayed with in Istanbul to seek asylum in Australia, where they now live.
Following the failed coup it took the secularist CHP three years to regain their footing, when in June of 2019 the party won the mayorship of Istanbul, the office where Erdogan’s rise to power began. I see a similarly slow path to recovery for Republican’s in the United States following the events of last week.
To this day I still don’t know if the coup attempt in Turkey was completely staged, 100% real or something in between. A CHP supporter might forward the narrative it was entirely staged because that puts Erdogan in a bad light (and because they believe it to be true), while an Erdogan supporter would say the coup attempt was entirely real in an effort to justify the ensuing purge (and because they believe it to be true).
Even though I was interning at the U.S. Embassy in the Turkish capital the truth of what really happened was above my security clearance, that’s if the U.S. actually knows it with any high degree of confidence (think Iraq weapons of mass destruction).
The facts were and are murky, but the consequences are clear. Erdogan was better off with a failed coup attempt than no coup attempt. Similarly, Democrats are better off with a failed Capitol insurrection than no Capitol insurrection.
On the night of the coup, I remember being woken up by a phone call from a Turkish friend. As I answered the call I became very concerned because I heard gunfire, mosques calling people into the streets, jets streaking overhead and bombs going off in the distance.
“Matt,” the voice on the other line said. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m in my apartment.”
“Don’t be afraid, something very special is happening. The military is removing Erdogan. This is a very good thing. Stay in your apartment and everything will be okay.”
That friend I was speaking with, like all of my Turkish friends, identifies as a liberal secularist, supported the failed coup to remove Erdogan and supports Democrats over Republicans in the United States. When push comes to shove, ends justify the means. We all have lines we are willing to cross if we feel it necessary.
These friends of mine would compare Erdogan to Trump, both strongmen seeking to rule beyond their elected mandate. If you take that comparison as valid then Erdogan succeeded where Trump failed.
That means the implication of the Capitol Riot are very much the reverse of Turkey in 2016. The populist religious right won out in Turkey while the left has won here in the United States.
For example, following the failed coup, Turkish NBA player and human rights activist Enes Kanter, a vocal critic of Erdogan, was banned from Twitter in the country. The government revoked his citizenship and attempted to extradite him to Turkey. He now lives in asylum in the United States.
Erdogan still has his twitter account while Kanter’s is banned in Turkey and Trump’s completely gone.
Today, Turkey is as polarized of a society as it was in 2016. The United States is very much the same way. We must find a way to return to a win-win politics or I fear this is only one in an increasing series of escalations.
"With malice towards none and charity towards all, let us bind up the nation’s wounds."
-Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1865
Pictures Following the Coup Attempt:
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