World View: Erdogan, like Trump, is a weaver of powerful myths fuelled by paranoia

Former US president Donald Trump and Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan: The ‘new’ autocrats rule in their own name. The state is a vehicle for their personal interests and aggrandisement, and they fashion cults of personality and a politics driven by fear and nationalism. Photograph: Reuters It was an accidental product of tradition and protocol but, in 2019, the autumn UN General Assembly gathering was ominously introduced by four consecutive speakers who epitomised the relatively new predominance on the world stage of the autocratic strongman leader. First was Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro; followed by the US's Donald Trump' Egypt's president ,Abdel…