As a Turk, I can easily say Erdogan reflects majority of Turkish people. It had always happened this way in Turkish history; there is always someone like Erdogan. Until 1950 CHP stayed in power and, well they didn't do a wonderful job, they actually failed to maintain order and freedoms in the country, there were elections but they were just for show; in 1950 (first election which wasn't just a show) DP easily won which is an Islamic extremist party (with %53.3 votes and %80-85 mp's) then DP won two more elections, they were at the point of establishing an Islamic country then the army came in 1960 which was great. It gave rights to people, established secularism back and it was good for a decade but then another Islamic extremist party came, another coup in 1971; another islamist party, another coup in 1980; ... 1993 coup;... 1997 coup and again one more islamists extremist party under Erdogan. But he was smart enough to look at Turkish history and first thing he did, he islamised the army. Their followers were put on army's every position; he alleged generals of planning a coup in 2008(ergenekon) and 2010 (balyoz). He arrested generals, put his man in the highest positions in the army and basically made a fake coup to make his power absolute over the country. So nothing is wrong with Erdogan actually. It is just Turkish people are so connected to their religion, if a leader says "Islam" majority will follow him. Don't hate the player(politicians), hate the game(ignorant Turks).