In the last decade, opposition researchers, public opinion makers, political and social commentators have always analyzed political and social change through political positions.
They looked at what was happening in society through political eyes. While announcing the results of their research, they approached the issues with the concern of "whether it would benefit the government". They framed the story of "change and transformation" in a way that would benefit the opposition. Ultimately, they presented their political wishes as reality.
Because they approached almost everything from education to economy, from culture to youth, with negative politics and destructive opposition mentality, they missed the bottom waves, social sensitivities and mainstream approaches. In Türkiye, they have moved away from reasonableness because they evaluate even "good" issues through obscuration and destructive criticism.
They designed politics, the practices of the government, policy outcomes, and political discourses to increase social opposition. They also took the social opposition's way of viewing politics to the extreme.
At the same time, they did not force the politicians and parties they supported to put forward a program. They had the illusion that truth could be constructed through discourse. Digital and social media networks have fed this illusion.
They could not foresee that the constant repetition of an opinion in certain media circles, social media networks and among analysts with similar political views could not turn that opinion into social reality.
Through the "false consensus effect" they thought their views were more prevalent in society than they were. They turned research data into useful material to defend their existing opinions. Political polarization has accelerated the circulation of these biased analyses.
This perspective became especially evident in youth analyses. Opposition opinion makers often distorted the truth about young people because they saw them as a convenient subject for political and ideological competition. Young people were tried to be used for political agendas with false statements.
As a requirement of opposition activism, young people were positioned as consumers of criticism. An attempt was made to adapt global trends to Turkish youth through generational generalizations.
Statements such as "young people are oppositionists", "young people are hopeless", "young people are moving away from religion", "young people do not vote for the AK Party and President Erdoğan" were disseminated with data sets that are not clear how they were made. There was even an attempt to make it the dominant discourse. However, these judgment sentences were more a reflection of political desires and concerns to society than analysis.
In the process, they saw that the destructive and negative understanding of opposition weakened the opposition, not the government. They began to face the fact that their identities and religious beliefs might not actually be what they were marketed to be. For example, they admitted that religion, identity and family values are still very important for young people, but what they cannot see is the way this is transformed.
Slowly, but under the pressure of the developments in the field and the opposition, these groups began to shyly say that the reality might not be exactly as they presented. They are confronting their misconceptions through some research results announced recently. Even though it is late, it is a good development that genuine discussions have started to be held about what political and social transformation is.
In subsequent articles, I will try to address this issue from a more concrete framework.
