What proved most effective for the government was not brute force, but tales of nefarious activities by Turkey’s secular and military elites, which were contrasted to Erdoğan’s supposed commitment to establishing a democratic (albeit Islamist-tinged) state through a reconstituted judiciary. Grotesque exaggerations based on half-truths, these tales gave Erdoğan and his allies the maneuvering room within which to make the political regime more, not less, authoritarian.