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How did a right wing populist party that began on YouTube win big in Japan’s recent election?

www.cnn.com

How did a right wing populist party that began on YouTube win big in Japan’s recent election? | CNN

Its leader is a former supermarket manager who created his political party on YouTube in the depths of the coronavirus pandemic and campaigned on the Trumpian message “Japanese First.”

Now Japan’s burgeoning right-wing populist party Sanseito has emerged an unlikely winner in parliamentary elections this weekend.

Inspired by other populist right-wing groups that have sprung up in recent years, Sanseito bagged 14 seats in Japan’s upper house, according to public broadcaster NHK – a dramatic increase from the single seat it had occupied previously.

29 comments

  • People are so damn stupid, they fall for the same lies over and over again. I hope that Japan wakes up before these people get even more power.

    • We'll have to see what happens with the upper house and then the next elections. The LDP have failed to many, especially younger, voters. They see overtourism, falling wages, etc. the young groups get a lot of info from SNS, a lot of it less than the full truth. A lot of disinfo on what we get/do as foreigners in Japan (I'm a permanent resident here for a decade).

      Thankfully, not all went far right. Some went for the dpftp which is another non-traditional party. The cdp is the main opposition, though they didn't do spectacularly either.

      I guess the question is if this is a blip or the new normal and how much impact they will have in the new government. If Japan doesn't do something about misinfo and disinfo, I think things will get very bad.

      Edit: some more I forgot. There's a big issue with (often unlicensed and illegal) short-term rentals. There have been news stories lately about people, often rich Chinese, buying buildings and jacking up rent to drive people out to turn the whole thing into rentals for Air BnB and the like. This is not super common but it is illegal (can't just unilaterally raise rent like that and also there are licenses required to run the rentals). When Japanese are crunched financially, stuff like this hurts a lot. One thing sanseito mentioned was foreign property ownership which, for reasons like that and rich foreigners in general coming over, buying property, and causing prices to rise, resonated.

      To clarify rumors about foreigners, it's that they're not paying pension and insurance, using more welfare, etc. Historically, this was an issue with some not paying pension and insurance (both legally required) but most still did pay. However, it should also be noted that some Japanese don't pay and the welfare and similar usage isn't super different and not high. Status of Residence renewal procedures even added more stringent checks on this and recently, even PR holders can be kicked out if they willingly stop paying anything after the process of obtaining it.

      • Knowing that Japan's economy is a mess right now, I suppose it isn't too surprising that people struggling to make ends meet would be susceptible to this kind of right wing grift. People are mad and want change, party promises change, whether it's actually the right kind of change isn't called into question.

    • Nope, Japan kept falling for the same lies for 30 years; now they're trying different lies.

  • "Now ______’s burgeoning right-wing populist party..."

    Is a sentence I'm REALLY fucking tired of seeing over and over and over and over... The future is depressing enough ffs.

    • i genuinely think what we have to do is start speaking in terms of the future we desire. fascism presents no hopeful vision of the future and only offers a return to an imagined past. i think the best way to dislodge people from the right wing beast is to offer them hope. the lower classes are suffering currently, and the right wing is saying to them "it used to be easier, didn't it? back when the police beat rodney king to within an inch of his life? we could go back to that"

      but the reality is they want to take us back to when we were all property. never forget that black people were enslaved by europeans around the time european serfs demanded and won their freedom. backsliding on slavery will not make anyone freer, it will just get everyone closer to being enslaved. same goes for women's rights, gay rights, trans rights, civil rights, everything.

      the only way for any of us to be free is to work together towards a shared future where everyone is fed, everyone has shelter, and no one has hoards of what anyone else needs. for the record, i'm an anarchocommunist (and i coalition most closely with religious anarchists from my time learning from jewish and native american anarchocommunists). this is our vision for the future. and lest anyone from a post soviet country think i'm advocating for bolshevism, i am decidedly not. any system that requires gulags to sustain itself is not a system that any anarchist can agree with. i believe in freedom from structures of power. that includes fascism, authoritarian communism, capital holders, and organized crime. the power must belong to the people because we are the ultimate originators of all of it.

      when the greedy parasites declare war, who do they draft? us. when the greedy parasites get hungry, who feeds them? us. when the greedy parasites needs their homes heated and connected to water, who do they call? us. it's always us. we're who runs all this machinery. we just need to awaken to the power that we have: the power we have always had

  • How?

    I still blame unscrupulous social media & marketing savvy, knowing how to (ab)use algorithms, lack of legislation both globally and esp. in the country that provides most of these "services". This is not politics, it's a legal grift.

29 comments