From Istanbul With Love: Kaya Genç on How Turkey is Watching Trump's America
About this episode
Kaya Genç discusses the impact of Trumpism on Turkey and the global political landscape.
“Someone said, oh, you look like Steve Bannon, and I love you for that… No, I just shaved my hair and lost some pounds.” — Kaya Genç on Trumpism’s global fanbase The NATO circus rumbled into the Turkish capital of Ankara this week resembling more of a gun show than an alliance summit. Ringmaster Donald J. Trump promised Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the F-35s and lifted the very sanctions that Trump himself had imposed. Erdogan handed out pistols to the assembled leaders — with poor old Keir Starmer (no Winston Churchill) leaving his at the airport. And observing all these clowns from Istanbul was the Turkish novelist and essayist Kaya Genç . As a contributor to the anthology How We See It: The World Looks at America in the Age of Trump , Genç is a keen America watcher. He first set foot in the United States in January 2017, stumbling into New York City’s protests against Trump 1.0’s Muslim-ban. What seemed temporary — Trump as a bizarre historical aberration — looked to Erdogan-literate Kaya Genç like an operating manual for 21st century populist authoritarianism. Turkey, Genç argues, has spent a century Americanizing itself. First with the 20th century Marshall Plan, the highways, the…
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