The demonstrations and protests against Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's decision to uproot trees from Taksim, the main square in Istanbul, to make way for one more shopping mall have continued unabated. 

Assumptions have been made by pundits and observers that these represent a major setback for Erdogan. But, really, are they?

Were he to use Twitter, here are 10 reasons he would post to show that these events actually help his agenda and goals:

1. The Istanbul Municipality is giving free showers to citizens. Cleanliness is good! This is what I call service.
2. New enterprises are born; see people selling masks in Taksim? Good, especially for my mostly unemployed Kurdish voters.
3. My minister of culture, Omer Celik, will not try to steal the limelight from me when I'm traveling by discovering another missing historical artifact in some godforsaken European museum.
4. My national intelligence officers were getting bored now that the peace process with the Kurds has started; now, they can chase the legions of foreign agents who have infiltrated the demonstrators. As a matter of fact, I think all of these demonstrators are foreign agents.
5. It is a good thing I bought shares in the tear-gas maker; we will now put in a huge order to replenish our stocks. I love free enterprise.
6. Olympic committee folks will see that we can mobilize lots of young people at a moment's notice to watch and participate in anything. Also, they clean up after themselves. Istanbul2020!
7. I will now start the Turkish version of Twitter, something I have always wanted to do. I will call it "karga" or "crow." Also, I hate the 140-character limit. My limit will be 1,453 characters, in honor of Istanbul's conquest.
8. I finally get to debate President Abdullah Gul on the meaning of democracy. He has a lot to learn, and I will remind him that elections are not the be-all-and-end-all. It is the one who makes the electoral rules who counts.
9. Look at all the women in the street protesting. Who brought them there? I did! And they complain my administration is anti-women. Next, by building a shopping mall, I want to show that women can shop in Taksim with their strollers and the three kids I mandated them to have.
10. I am the one and only person who can democratize Turkey. Overnight, I empowered a whole series of bums and marginals, and carried them into the mainstream. Now the 25-to-35 year olds will provide the necessary oxygen to build up this country's pathetic civil society.

Henri Barkey is a professor of international relations at Lehigh University.