Turkey has become a madhouse under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan he creates an Orwellian world to replace democracy, said Aslı Aydıntaşbaş in the Washington Post.

As human rights defenders and journalists remain in jail and students protesting war are arrested as terrorists, television sets are awash with series praising the grandeur of the Ottoman Empire, religious schools are replacing secular ones and the media is compliantly parroting the government, said Aydıntaşbaş, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“Our nation’s self-lobotomy starts at schools and extends through state institutions into every section of society,” she said. “Roughly 70,000 students are in jail in Turkey, but the figure doesn’t include those that have been kicked out of schools in the past few years – on what else? Terrorism charges.”

Meanwhile, the economy is tanking because Erdoğan doesn’t understand economics, thinking higher interest rates lead to more inflation. As the lira plunges, Erdoğan is blaming the country’s economic ills on political enemies, she says.

“The absurdity of life in Turkey today may be a natural outcome of the authoritarian drift on top. No one can tell the boss the truth, so everyone must pretend his desires are reality,” Aydıntaşbaş said. “Eventually, this collective delusion creates a level of daily insanity that feels unbearable.”