Turkish Pro-Erdogan Journalist: Victorious Trump Would Crush Enemies ‘Like a Bulldozer’

Turkish columnist Ibrahim Karagül, a passionate supporter of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, predicted in the pages of Yeni Safak on Tuesday that no matter which way the hotly contested U.S. presidential election goes, the outcome will not be great for Turkey.

Karagül anticipated a re-elected President Donald Trump would roll over adversaries both foreign and domestic “like a bulldozer,” while he expected Joe Biden to attempt a regime-change operation against Erdogan.

Karagül saw the contentious election as a sign of American social and political decline. 

“This election is going to be held during a period in which the world is re-dividing into camps, in which new rising powers have emerged, where the U.S. influence is no longer as strong as it used to be, and the division within the country has taken on a dangerous state,” he argued.

“The U.S. continued to lose power during the last three election terms. This loss is prevalent in every field, including politics, the military, and the economy. The voids caused as a result of this loss have been filled by other powers – and will continue to be filled. We are going to continue to see American influence further weaken in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia,” he wrote.

Karagül proved to be correct in doubting the polls that showed Biden sweeping the election by seven points or more, anticipating the social and political upheavals in America would produce a surprise on par with the “major shock” of Trump’s victory in 2016.

After shrugging off the results as relatively unimportant to Turkey, which is on a “rising streak that continues to shock the West” and has become “one of the new superpowers,” Karagül ventured that Trump would at least bring “strong leadership” – along the lines of Erdogan or Russian President Vladimir Putin – to the U.S. in a second term, while Biden is captive to the “cliches of the old world” and might try to “oust Erdogan.”

Quoting Biden’s comments about supporting the Turkish opposition, Karagül judged this kind of New World Order thinking to be more dangerous than Trump jousting with Erdogan on the fair field of international competition:

They pinned all their hopes onto Biden’s election. He is going to be the U.S. president. He is going to support and strengthen, and bring order to the opposition in Turkey. Hand in hand, they are going to topple Erdoğan!

This is their plan; this is what they revealed. They have no other political plan or project up their sleeves; they have nothing to say or offer that will add value to Turkey. This is a complete collapse, a complete exhaustion. They attempted a military coup on July 15, 2016. What is going to happen now if Biden is elected? Are they going to carry out a political coup?

What a shame. Then we are going to say that you and those designing Turkey’s opposition through Biden’s candidacy are all part of the same project. Then we are going to say that Turkey’s political opposition was set up in the U.S.

Karagül never quite got around to specifying who “They” are, but his readers are probably familiar with Erdogan’s list of usual suspects – from the followers of exiled cleric Fethullah Gülen, to separatist Kurds, to his dual incarnations of evil on earth, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. Gülen and his followers were held responsible by Erdogan for the 2016 coup attempt Karagül mentioned.

The degree to which Turkey looms in the minds of either Trump or Biden strategists is open to debate, but Erdogan and his supporters would not look kindly upon either of them for supporting the Turkish opposition. On Wednesday, the Turkish government fined Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Periscope, and TikTok over a million dollars apiece for failing to comply with new Turkish laws regulating social media posts. 

Internet rights expert Yaman Akdeniz of Bilgi University told the Wall Street Journal he expected foreign social media companies may consider withdrawing entirely from the “hostile environment” in Turkey. With Erdogan supporters now firmly in control of most major Turkish legacy media outlets, it would be very difficult for either a Trump or Biden administration to speak directly to the Turkish opposition.