Since 2015, a rhetorical and political pivot by Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) both fed and fed on a surge of Turkish “ultranationalism.” This rise witnessed, and arguably facilitated, the removal of democratically-elected Kurdish mayors, a closure case against the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), and political violence targeting Kurds. Prior to the devolution of this relationship into crisis, however, the AKP had taken unprecedented steps toward resolving the decades-long conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish militants with its “Solution Process” (çözüm süreci), an initiative begun in 2012 and made public in 2013. While a solution to the decades-long “Kurdish Question” seemed closer than ever in 2013, by the end of 2015 Turkey seemed on the brink of civil war. How are these dramatic political and societal swings possible? This paper explores the conditions of how the shift in perceptions of Kurds from enemies to allies to enemies again takes place. I employ social identity theory (SIT), an approach ideally suited to grappling with questions of Ingroup-Outgroup relations, to explain both how the ground-breaking overtures by the AKP toward solving the Kurdish Question were possible, as well how Kurds went from partners to traitors in the government’s eyes. In brief, I argue that nothing inherent in the AKP’s understanding of Turkish identity precluded the political expression of Kurdishness. This made outreach, including the 2009 Kurdish Opening and the subsequent solution process, possible through the articulation of an Ingroup that celebrated common religious ties and downplayed ethnic differences. I then identify two sequential developments that made these Ingroup ties impossible to sustain. I argue solidarity with Syrian Kurds fueled outrage at the AKP’s (in)action during September 2014 ISIS siege of Kobane, leading Turkey’s Kurds to revoke their support for then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s vision of a presidential system, making them unreliable Ingroup members. I then argue that the HDP’s crossing of the 10% threshold in June 2015, an electoral success that removed the AKP’s parliamentary majority for the first time since 2002, made them a political threat and thus placed them in the Outgroup. Using intertextual analysis of data collected from party documents, media reports, and interviews, I use the SIT framework to explain the shift in the AKP’s attitude toward Kurds from one of Ingroup pride to one of Outgroup prejudice, sacrificing a prime opportunity to resolve the Kurdish Question on the altar of presidential ambition.