In the spring of 2016, political tension in Turkey was reaching unprecedented heights.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was changing laws, the civil service and official policy. With all branches of government--except the judiciary and the military--controlled by his Justice and Development Party (AKP in Turkish), Erdoğan was transforming the Turkish state and society.

The secular, non-religious, Western-oriented model that had served Turkey since Ataturk's revolution of 1923 was eroding. Erdoğan's populist leadership was reducing the power of the educated, secularists and middle classes. Instead, power was shifting toward his supporters; less educated, more nationalistic, concentrated in small towns and the countryside.

Might secularists and followers of the Gülen movement join to over-throw Erdoğan? How might the President and his populist supporters react? Where is this leading the most powerful country in the Middle East, the country on the hinge between Europe and Asia?