The language of hate behind the "get rid of Erdoğan" discourse

The performance that the sides put on in exaggerating the importance of the coming elections belongs to the nature of the language of competition specific to elections. In political competition this performance race also fulfills an important function. After all, everyone tries to find a way to explain their own political position to people.

What is odd is that the approaches displayed on this matter are found so strange. Otherwise, looking at the change AK Parti has brought about in the country during 20 years in power, at the difference between 20 years ago and the end of it, it is impossible not to call it a "silent revolution." In almost every area. Between the first ten and the last ten of these 20 years, whoever wants can find whatever differences they like. Whoever wants can assess these differences in favor of the values AK Parti represents, and whoever wants, against them.

This is politics. There is no objective measure of assessment. If there were, we would leave our business to objective criteria and to the non-political or supra-political technocrats who would apply them; they would already know scientifically and objectively what should be done, and would do it. Yet politics is precisely a level of human existence realized through disputes, through people who do not like one another, who even hate one another, arguing with one another, struggling against one another and gaining positions. Without politics there is no human being either. But where there is politics, there is dispute too, and separation, and conflict, and debate. In Turkey's picture today, this separation, conflict and debate takes place both between parties and, most of the time, within a party itself.

It is of course not possible for a two-polar political structure to end, exhaust and altogether drag out all the political positions, debates and disputes that society can produce.

Looking at the democracy analyses that the unappointed theorists of the Nation Alliance level at the ruling side from these two poles, it is impossible not to be amazed at their attempt to produce a democracy hero out of themselves by wiping clean the entire CV of the CHP, the main component of the Nation Alliance, and making its past forgotten. By ascribing to AK Parti and Erdoğan such "virtues" as polarization, anti-democratic character, distance from inclusiveness and rationality, they are evidently claiming that Kılıçdaroğlu has the exact opposite.

They are trying to nullify the campaign Erdoğan or the People's Alliance has built on "continuing the gains for Türkiye." In doing so, on the one hand they try nihilistically to ignore, belittle and drain of meaning these gains, and on the other they try to instill the hope of a more democratic, more open, younger, more rational alternative.

But who will this more open, younger, more successful, more democratic alternative be? Do these qualities suit Kılıçdaroğlu at all? In fact, would these qualities suit any CHP member?

They try to ascribe some negativity, ambition, anxiety about the fear of losing and so on, even to Erdoğan's putting in so much effort and running about in an election campaign to the point of risking his health.

We read what is written on this with astonishment. Have they only just got to know Erdoğan? In which election during his political life did Erdoğan work less than this? The Erdoğan whose whole political life we have witnessed has in no election worked less than this. He never took his job lightly, never left it to chance. Politics for Erdoğan was never a place to lounge about, never a sultanate in which he made others work while he enjoyed the pleasures of the job.

This was one of the most important secrets of his winning every election he has entered so far, though the greater secret is the sincerity he has proven to the people whose votes he seeks. That sincerity has been Erdoğan's greatest, most effective power. Even his throwing himself into elections harder than everyone else is in fact a sign of that sincerity. Instead of resorting to dishonest methods, to ways that in fact mean deceiving oneself before others by dishonest methods, he cared a great deal about explaining himself to people. Over time he adopted explaining himself as the most important way of respecting his people.

There is a message that Erdoğan's concentrating his election campaign on presenting ongoing and inaugurated services and projects reflects by itself. Even if he says nothing on top of it, there is something these openings say. They are the cumulative result of work that has continued for 20 years, stable and coordinated with all the institutions and elements of the state and society. Without this stability these openings, these inaugurations and these developments would not have been possible. This is a very strong, very valid and very valuable advantage. Erdoğan and all of AK Parti's actors voice it, without leaving it to the language of the openings alone. No party with such a power, such an advantage, would refrain from using it, nor can it be expected to.

Kılıçdaroğlu's unappointed theorists are concerned with nullifying this power, this value, this advantage. Against an Erdoğan who has not lost any election he has entered in 25 years, the only thing they promise the nation cannot go beyond "getting rid of him" by the hand of someone who has never won any election.

Why would anyone want to get rid of him? They have no style other than the nihilist, denialist attitude they have taken on this. Is this leader, from whom they promise deliverance, standing at the head for 25 years against this nation? What is the way of getting rid of the person who, in every election, has worked harder than everyone else to explain himself to the people and get their approval again, and has succeeded in it? Beyond and other than the ambition to get rid of him, what is promised to this nation?

Those who criticize Erdoğan for polarizing, for using harsh language or for the arguments he uses, one would think, are promising politics an environment of rose gardens, hand in hand, united, with life a festival.

When their whole motivation is getting rid of Erdoğan and all the accumulations of a change that his leadership has been making for twenty years, nothing pours from their words or their noses but the language of rage and revenge. They do not even see that the promise of getting rid of Erdoğan is easily translated into a language of grudge and hatred against at least half of the society that has stood behind him for twenty years.

This situation, which they cannot see, is their alienation from this people and from politics, and Erdoğan's will win again. I wonder whether they will see it this time?