Yes I know this is very late. If you don't feel like it feel free to not respond. Sometimes it takes me a while before I can post my responses and this is under the thread necromancy limit of several months.
Ah, violent agreement!
I'd say there are two big differences--at least from an institutional perspective--between the Selim/Mahmud New Order reforms and the Tanzimat. First, the New Order reforms relied primarily on the Sultan's degree power, while Tanzimat was, at least in part, an attempt to build an independent bureaucracy. Hence why Tanzimat could result, all be it temporarily, in the creation of a parliament and constitution while the new order could not. Second, from what I understand the new order was really a fairly narrowly-focused program primarily oriented toward military reform. Carter Findly and Frederick Anscombe--who don't seem to agree about much of nineteenth century Ottoman history, agree on that point. Tanzimat was, from the Gulhane decree on, an attempt to really recast the empire along liberal lines.
Taking this back to the OP: after Abdulhamid, I think--and this may be a minority opinion--there may have been a window for a second Tanzimat. You'd need Sabahaddin to make smarter political choices, but I think it's doable. There's a reason Abdulhamid didn't think Ahmed Rizza--head of the CUP--was worth co-opting; if Sabahaddin doesn't allow Rizza, of all people, to outflank him as the defender of Muslims unhappy with the Hamidian regime, I think he and the CUP might not have been the clear-cut winners of 1908. And given that, by 1908, you have a lot more administrative capacity than you did during the Tanzimat, might have been able to fulfill the promise of the earlier reforms while at the same time not alienating the pan-Islamist pillars of Ottoman legitimacy.
Of course, the other challenge/opportunity with Sabahaddin is that he favored perhaps a greater degree of decentralization than most other reformers. Decentralization probably would have been good for the empire in the long-run, but it'd take shrewd diplomacy to get them to that long-run.
One of the problems with comparing the Tanzimat and New Order is that the former had a much longer time to expand and develop. Selim III was only really able to get reform going after Napoleons invasion of Egypt and had to deal with the Napoleonic Wars occurring at precisely the wrong time, which culminated in the overthrow of him and the reformists. Tanzimat of course, occurred until the Ottoman dismemberment after WW1. While Selim III certainly played an important role in the New Order, he was also part of a larger coalition of elites who benefited from New Order policies. For example, various members of the fiscal bureaucracy gathered around Izzet Mehmed, Furthermore, affiliates of religious orders like the Naksibendiye and Mevleviye were integrated into the bureaucracy as well and they openly supported the New Order. In the long run, I believe the New Order goal of creating a modern, centralized, fiscal, administrative, and military bureaucracy would inherently make the bureaucracy a strong independent force because of the power it would accrue. We just weren't able to see this because of the extreme fragmentation during Selim III's rule.
The term "New Order" was used to refer primarily to the army at the time but the reforms themselves encompassed a much wider area. The term "New Order" was retroactively applied to all the reforms later and I continue this use because its convenient. It is true that the primary goal of the reforms was to strengthen the military but as Thomas Naff says in his article
Reform and the Conduct of Ottoman Diplomacy in the Reign of Selim III, 1789-1807 :
The primary objective of his reform program was to regenerate the military might of his Empire. Consequently, it must be emphasized that all other reforms, including those in the sphere of diplomacy, were intended in one way or another to contribute to the attainment of that goal. However, Selim was aware that "like the wheels of a watch" the affairs of government were inter- connected, and reform must be comprehensive if it were to be successful.3 Given such awareness, and the fact that diplomacy had, by Selim's reign, become one of the vital branches of the Ottoman government, the diplomatic establishment occupied a large place in the remedial schemes of the Sultan and his advisers. While it was neither his intention nor his wish, Selim's reforms in the Ottoman military and diplomatic systems opened channels through which the thought and techniques of Revolutionary Europe first penetrated the Empire. The process of change was carried out with the help of European instructors; Ottomans found it necessary to learn European languages and, in consequence, began moderately to delve into various branches of European literature: In this way, western ideas gradually began to overcome the barriers of Muslim prejudice against all things Christian, and the evolution toward the modern nation-state of Turkey had begun
As I mentioned previously, reform of the bureaucracy in general was a major part of New Order reform. While the needs of the time forced reformers to cooperate with independent notables, the ultimate goal of the fiscal reforms was to create a centralized fiscal administration through direct taxation and management of revenue units with centrally appointed officers (the creation of the New Treasury in 1793 being a key part of this). There were plenty of elites who benefited from New Order policies and had a vested interest in continuing them. It took a coup for them to be expelled from power. In fact, the New order went beyond reform-it was also an elite identity and style of living. Along with drill and discipline, the New order was also about new forms of consumption and politeness. This is all from
Partners of the Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of Revolutions by Ali Yaycioglu. There were also attempts to reform the Berat system and help Muslim merchants compete with their Christian counterparts, though the sub-optimal situation of the time means they weren't as effective as Selim III had hoped. The problem however-which would become of the worst roadblocks to Ottoman success through the 19th c-was recognized even back then.
Basically, I'm not claiming that the New Order was equal to Tanzimat, but I certainly think it was growing into it before being terribly set back.
I have always thought the pro-Ottoman view that the Europeans was mean to them pretty damn hilarious, is it correct view of course, but let's not forget that the Ottoman Empire build on attacking, plundering and conquering Christian land, and not in the far past either, the Ottomans biggest enemies was the Austrians whose capital had been twice besieged by the Ottomans, and the Russians who had been the main target of slave raiding from Ottoman vassal since the rise of the Empire. If the Ottomans was too weak to defend themselves from enemies who had reformed their states and armies, the blame lies in Constantinoble not in Vienna, Petersburg, Paris or London.
the whole idea of "blaming" the Ottomans or Christians is very odd. We're discussing the historical facts of whether or not Christian European states set back Ottoman reform. This really has nothing to do with whether or not they were "mean" (???).
I think the problem is that they are... for lack of a better term, unrefined by western standards. The nationalism and religious disputes make it worse.
Here is an analogy. Imagine the CSA broke away from the North and the north never ever bothered to retake it. Also consider that USA didn't acquire California from the Mexicans. Imagine a native America population 30X what it was in OTL. Imagine the south having a cosnituion that says the state religion is Christianity as long as it's not Papist. You can be a filthy papist, but know that you can't vote and people can legally descrimmmiante you because of your religion. Then imagine a CSA leader a decade later conquers Mexico.
So you have a huge country with lots of conquered people and a large group of population that has a very good reason to hate the government. Also, the labor system is backwards and ideologically behind the rest of the world. If you don't have a reform or complete collapse, a decline to irrelevance will happen. And OTL Ottomans kept slavery muuuuch longer than the Europeans. Government sanctioned kidnapping happened not long before then too, like in the 1870s. All of these might have once had a purpose just as the concept of "the strong handsome guy should be the leader and all disputes should be answered by him" once had a purpose in society once upon a time, but don't exactly fit in the modern world.
I don't know what you mean by "unrefined" TBH. I do know that your analogy is very confusing. I don't know what the USA, SCA, Mexico, California, and the Native Americans parallel. The Ottomans allowed Christians and Jews to vote and gave them legal equality in the Empire during the Tanzimat. Actually Christian and Jews were able to gain many high-ranking positions in the government. The Jewish community in particular was very favorable towards the government-the Ottoman Jew immigrant population in America continued to identify as
Turkinos even after the OE was dismembered for example. I don't see any problem in the OE that can't be fixed with a more successful reform.