Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, was tapped to assume control of the country by Iran’s Assembly of experts, Iranian International reported Tuesday.
Motjaba is known for a staunch adherence to his father’s hardline conservatism, and has close ties to Iran’s notoriously brutal Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military body, according to CNN.
Even without free elections, you are going to have that same dynamic present.
What I meant by that was that you don’t have liberal states like California versus conservative ones like Florida, because you don’t get to elect Newsom versus DeSantis. In other words people don’t move to Tehran for trans rights or free daycare, they move there because that’s where the majority of jobs are. So labeling Tehran as “where the reformists live” doesn’t make sense to me as someone who has lived there for 25 years.
California still has plenty of people who are far right - outside the cities. And places like Texas still have people who are relatively to the left… who live in cities. Despite the fact that cities are where the jobs are and why a lot of people live in places like Texas.
Ah, ok. I do wonder if at least the general divide between people opting to stay out of Tehran verus in the city is there with respect to being against or for the government. I could believe a bunch of people just want to make a living, but of those that support or reject the government, is there a divide between rural and urban?
I would say generally they are more religious which somewhat correlates with backing the regime. But then again, I wouldn’t categorize anywhere as a conservative or liberal stronghold.
I think the lens of “conservative” versus “liberal” is a fairly narrow and contextual one in general anyway… It’s ‘good enough’ in American politics but even then…