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Japan's ruling party is in crisis as voters swing to right-wing rivals
- whatever1 1y agoEveryone is so pissed at each other. Let have a World War. This time it will surely resolve all of the issues. If not, some subsequent Civil Wars will do the trick.
- ares623 1y agoIt’ll all come to a head at some point. It’s only a matter of the nation’s ruling class being able to direct the anger elsewhere rather than to themselves. All that anger and desperation needs an outlet.
- BatteryMountain 1y agoWe do not want world war. We want good health care, good food and 4-day work weeks. Just chill out & enjoy life. Time is short. More than happy if we can get an island and turn it into a free-for-all arena and then all you war mongers can go get it out of your system. Leave the rest of us in peace.
- lyu07282 1y agoSorry best we can do in the west is liberalism with fascist characteristics.
- whatever1 1y agoThat’s the voice of reason. Unfortunately less and less want to listen to that.
- johnnyanmac 1y agoSadly, many war mongerers are the "leaders"with their fingers on the button. And the billionaires seem to back it I guess. Gotta make use of those bunkers.
- incomingpain 1y ago>Everyone is so pissed at each other. Let have a World War. This time it will surely resolve all of the issues. If not, some subsequent Civil Wars will do the trick. Nobody needs/wants war. That's never the solution to our problems. OP isnt even correct. Japan has loads of crisis level problems, but the 'ruling party' would win the election if it happened today.
- shoobiedoo 1y agoNot surprising after the recent severe rice shortage and there was a glut of news showing foreigners from a certain country selling hoarded bags of rice only to countrymen on social media
- immibis 1y agoWhat's even more enraging than the rise of fascism is the fact that only fascists have figured out how to be popular in the age of social media.
- ares623 1y agoIt takes a certain kind of person to be popular on social media. The venn diagram of both is very nearly a single circle.
- baxtr 1y agoNah, also radical left wing people get popular. Any radical person figure out how to be popular quickly
- dns_snek 1y agoThe representation of "radical left" (whatever that means) is no more than a drop in the bucket compared to the rise of authoritarian right-wing viewpoints in the media and especially politics. Communist political parties practically don't exist while authoritarian right wing parties running on austerity, cracking down on personal freedoms, and spreading hate towards all sorts of out-groups are gaining mainstream appeal in a lot of the world. Unless you're using the bastardized American definition of "radical left" where any viewpoint to the left of centre, like "our systems are crumbling, rich people should be taxed more" is labeled "radical left".
- dijit 1y agoTo be honest with you, I see a lot less of the Authoritarian Right than I do of the Authoritarian Left… And as a person who does not like authoritarianism, it informs my opinion.
- martin_henk 1y agothe old guard also got over rolled by the algo heavy media like TikTok or X... they don't effectively engage on these channels. young Japanese people don't own TVs
- Shank 1y agoI think the LDP has been in crisis for quite some time, and hasn’t recovered from the crisis. The fact of the matter is that voters are deeply unhappy with the corruption scandal, and the persistent inability to handle even basic issues like the cost of living increasing, energy price increasing, and the rice shortage. Voter apathy is also greater with younger people, because as most of my friends have expressed, many feel overshadowed by older voters. In other words, the crisis has been ongoing since the original corruption scandal broke, and the ineffective governance has reiterated this.
- toyg 1y agoHas the LDP ever not been "in crisis", since the end of the real estate bubble last century?
- duxup 1y agoI was going to say something like that. I am not knowledgeable about Japanese politics but I swear this is a narrative I hear constantly.
- OgsyedIE 1y agoA Japanese commentator on a place I follow elsewhere remarked that the single biggest fault in party politics are the politicians who think the international market that buys Japanese services are a black box for receiving national income that they never have to worry about it going away even though it's been diminishing and losing reliability for several years already. Does this reflect what you see?
- Shank 1y agoObservationally, there are many systems in Japan that place disproportionate value on international income and demand. Some of them are supported by data and others are not. I think that international markets are a relatively good place for Japan to focus, but it is the case that particularly with the US levying tariffs on Japan, people are now questioning this status quo more. In the spaces I'm familiar with, there is ample market data to show overseas growth, but this mostly focuses on Japan's historical market exports, like culture and IP. Almost on a yearly basis, there is some meaningful cultural export that Japan is able to export quite effectively. Japanese companies, who previously would have licensed this to an overseas distributor or team of companies are starting to move in house. The most prominent example of this is Sony acquiring Crunchyroll, Funimation, and RightStuf, all of which contribute to Sony creating a vertically integrated anime production stack, with Aniplex owning end-to-end domestic-to-overseas production, merchandising, and distribution. There is definitely room to be worried, but the increase in tourism (perhaps, one might refer to it as "overtourism") supports the credence that there are valuable elements of Japanese culture that have demand overseas. I think the more you stray from traditional mainstay IP and culture exports, the more unreliable it is. Again, a notable prolific example is Nippon Steel attempting to gain profit from operating US Steel, rather than simply taking market share. On the topic of tariffs, though, I would definitely say that many Japanese people are upset about the tariffs, first directly at the US, and second at Ishiba for not negotiating a lower tariff rate. But here the sentiment is that the tariffs themselves are not only unjustified, but also deleterious to the US-Japan relationship. Japan is rather unique in the aspect of being militarily-tethered to the US, and the US has asked it to make uncomfortable (and difficult to gain large support for) economic investments in its own JSDF for the US's benefit. Subsequently, the tariff impact makes the LDP's position quite upsetting, because the LDP failed to negotiate tariffs and more-or-less shoved the military changes through with the intention of strengthening ties with the US. So, there are a lot of things at play, but the current economic winds and the international relationship with the US has definitely skewed people towards isolationism and made it difficult for the LDP to retain the support they have.
- ExoticPearTree 1y agoThe solution is pretty straight forward: give people what they want if you want to stay in power. You don’t need to go full left or full right, because at the extremes there are not that many people you need to fully please.
- johnnyanmac 1y agoYes, but you assume solution minded people are the ones who become politicians. Common mistake, I still make it myself.
- totetsu 1y agoI think its neat you can see exactly the kind of ads they are running in meta transparency tool https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_type=political_and_issue_ads&country=JP&is_targeted_country=false&media_type=all&search_type=page&view_all_page_id=112523977041775 https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_t... and get an idea of the mish-mash of policies they put foward and their 'we're not racists we just like Japanese people more than foreigners' kind of rhetoric https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT4vY_SJimE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT4vY_SJimE
- saltyoldman 1y agoEvery country should have a government that likes their own people more than anyone else on the planet. It would be horrible to have anyone else.
- MathMonkeyMan 1y agoThe trick is defining "their own people."
- tho23i42234 1y agoI'd have imagined that the first thing that "Japan First" would imply would be to kick out the US-bases, defend against the feudatory-lord like shake-down measures by the US. It's so strange - the "Japan First" gang infact appears to be pro-occupation (let's not pretend this is not what this is), and have even been raising funds for the likes of imperialists like Kirk. Almost seems like it's meant to keep Japan artificially glued to the US and out of Asia, and not let geography work. Reminds me of what Brezhinsky feared about Germany / Russia getting together (and is now playing out in Europe). Really sad though, since JICA and the prev. generations really gave Japan a very good name across Asia.
- aikinai 1y agoThis is a disingenuous strawman. "Japan First" doesn't have to mean your naïve interpretation of some maximally xenophobic isolationism. If the US bases are good for Japan, then it's perfectly "Japan First". Some people might disagree—certainly plenty of right-wing Japanese do disagree—but many also believe that the US alliance and the bases are critical to Japan's greater sovereignty and prosperity. Without the security treaty and cooperation, Japan would on their own against China, diverting far more funds to defense and accepting much higher security risk.
- DataDaemon 1y agoI wonder what happened, printing money is not enough?
- OgsyedIE 1y agoSome root cause analysis: * Big swings to populism (even if the populist leaders are merely lying about their populist beliefs to entrench their power and set up an oligarchy) come about because of loss of legitimacy in the mainstream political spectrum. * In the absence of a large and unexpected disaster, a loss of mainstream political legitimacy comes from mass alienation slowly attriting away the base of support. * Japan is an import-heavy country with an educationally demanding labor market in a time of global uncertainty driving up trade costs across the board and impacting people's available cognitive energy budget. Under such circumstances, I'd be shocked if Sanseito hasn't already collaborating with AfD for a while.