Well, whatever he thought, Covid-19 has blown everyone's plans wide open.
Erdogan has to somehow keep his deeply indebted country rolling and his population of 82 million employed. It seems foolish to start picking fights with his biggest trading partner but, who knows, perhaps this is the sort of distraction that will keep his population focused on nationalism.
He seems to be feeding his nationalistic sheeple by strenghtening the reliegious ethos with such moves as turning Hagia Sofia into a Mosque and taking over this neutral territory which was in limbo for a really long time. Erdogan has nothing else to show his supporters rather than Turkey is becoming strong again, some sort of Turkish version of MAGA. The Turks who don’t support Erdogan are powerless at the moment. Only economic disaster will weaken his grip on power there. Similar to Erdogan we have Viktor Orban in Hungary and many others in the making. Hopefully once Trump is out other totalitarian dictators will follow suit
Everything you say is correct, but Erdogan predated MAGA. It is Trump that emulates the fascism and jingoistic populism of Erdogan. They are made from the same cloth.
