Democracy has always struck me as an interesting form of government, precisely for the reason being shown here: If the voting wasn't rigged, and we have no reason to believe it was, then Erdoğan was indeed voted into office according to the laws of Turkey, and thus has about as legitimate a reason to do what he's doing as anyone in his position would, at least if you buy into how a representative democracy works.<p>So then a man who was ostensibly elected by his people starts taking actions that <i>some</i> (it's not all) of his people disagree strongly with, and they attempt to show that disagreement in the form of protesting. So far so good, right? The system is working, about as well as it can. There is a vocal minority attempting to gather numbers by protesting the actions of an elected official the minority disagrees with. That sounds like a country I'd like to live in, right?<p>But then the oppression begins, and here is why this got so bad, from what I've just read: out come the tear gas and the riot shields. This goes from a beautiful process of democracy in action to what we in the US would call a blatant violation of First Amendment Rights (capital F, A and R). Now you've got a national incident, which grows as the mistreatment grows, and soon it's an international incident that looks a <i>little bit</i> like what many other countries in the area have gone through, which lead to the ending of a government. But it's not that, because what would you replace this government with? A democracy? That's what got them to this point in the first place.<p>So what exactly happens now? By all rights, Erdoğan should remain in office for the remainder of his term. How can the protesters ask for anything else? He is, after all, a fairly elected leader of their country. I honestly don't know what the alternative would be. I keep trying to imagine how this would go down in America, and I can't imagine a President stepping down because of violent protesting in NYC or D.C..