“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 Hilton hotels, and finally an American-style executive presidency operating on the politics of referendum. Now, he says, the whole world — from Turkey to France and Britain — is living with the consequences of 21st century Americanization.
Like a more functional NATO, right-wing populists operate like an international alliance. Erdogan, Trump, Meloni, Le Pen and Farage are like a club in which projecting strength at summits buys impunity at home. And this club has a house style. Turkish right-wing columnists, Genç reports, deploy Michael Corleone on their X banners — exactly David Thomson’s warning earlier this week about Hollywood’s glorification of on-screen violence.
So, in a way, America observers like Kaya Genç got a sneak preview of Trump’s America in movies like The Godfather. First as cinema, then as life. From both Turkey and Russia with love.
Five Takeaways
• NATO: The Club of the Mighty. Activists rounded up before the summit; pistols gifted to leaders. In Turkish civil society NATO represents not world order but might — and arms exports are now the mission of the Turkish economy.
• Trump: A Star Among Right-Wing Voters Everywhere. The Turkish media savaged Biden but forgives Trump everything. The Turkish right’s selective America: yes to the death penalty and guns, no to labor rights and free expression.
• Living the Consequences of Americanization. Marshall Plan, highways, Hiltons — and finally an American-style executive presidency by referendum. Trump 1.0 looked temporary in New York; in Ankara it looked like a manual.
• Populists Learn Like Large Language Models. Not a Turkish model or an American one — a dialogue. Project strength abroad; impunity at home. Putin isn’t in the curriculum: Russia is becoming a footnote.
• The Hologram and the Pushback. Imamoglu won Istanbul with socialist municipalism. From Mamdani to AOC, Genç’s advice: don’t fragment — conquer the big parties.
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.
Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow
Buy How We See It: thenewpress.org/books/how-we-see-it
Chapters:
00:00:31 Introduction: Trump, Erdogan, and the NATO summit in Ankara
00:02:00 Arrests before the summit: NATO as the club of the mighty
00:04:55 Pistols for the NATO leaders
00:05:14 Starmer couldn't take his gun home
00:05:48 How Trump looked up close
00:06:23 “You look like Steve Bannon, and I love you for that”
00:07:47 He speaks our language: authoritarianism
00:08:00 The Turkish right's selective America
00:10:21 How We See It: writing America from Istanbul
00:10:52 First time on US soil: January 2017, the Muslim ban protests
00:11:24 Trump 1.0: temporary in New York, a manual in Ankara
00:15:43 Which America did Turkey embrace?
00:16:24 HBO America, jazz America, escape America
00:19:54 Imamoglu: the hologram candidate
00:21:51 Ece Temelkuran and How to Lose a Country
00:22:53 Right-wing populists learn like large language models
00:24:34 Gramsci, culture war, and the club of strongmen
00:26:31 Interregnum, or the new world?
00:27:16 The death of soft liberalism
00:28:48 Rosa Luxemburg, Sevgi Soysal, and Walking
00:30:36 Mamdani, AOC, and How We See It, volume two
00:31:39 Conquer the big parties
00:33:58 Is Putin still a model?
00:37:04 Netanyahu, Gaza, and antisemitism in Turkey
00:39:50 Iran, Venezuela, and the fear America will come for us
00:43:12 Istanbul: the new Paris for dissidents
00:44:40 The Godfather, David Thomson, and cinema's strongmen
00:48:08 Thanks and goodbye