I saw the signboards go up around Narita Machi and the New Town last week, and now the spaces are filling up with the candidates for the recently called-for national election.
As an American, my vote is in Pennsylvania. So I am happy to be an observer in all of this, and, also, that I don’t have any “dog in the hunt”. I have met both Representative Koike and Representative Yatagawa (now three times recently!), and I’m only displaying Rep. Koike above Yatagawa because Rep. Yatagawa’s picture is bigger (and it’s consistent with the signboard.)
I collect everyone’s handouts to get an education. I pay attention to the Diet, but probably worry about my own diet more.
What’s different about Japanese politics is that it’s more retail, and you can actually meet the person who represents you in the Diet.
Under what is called the 1955 System, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Rep. Koike has had control of government for most of the last seventy years. Recently, the dominance of the party has been getting reduced due to new parties showing up with “youth” (ehem, under age 50 counts as youth), and social media appeal. This election was called on the fly to see if Prime Minister Takaichi, the first female prime minister, could leverage her appeal to more seats in the Diet, so she could actually pass things without negotiating with two or three minor parties.
I think Rep. Yatagawa of the opposition, recently pointed out that many of the elections since 1976 have been called by the main party at times when it wants to use its popularity to boost its numbers, always seeking reassurance of the electorate at a very good time. In this installment, Rep. Yatagawa’s party, the Constitutional Democrats, have come together with the former, long-standing junior coalition party of the Liberal Democrats, called Komeito (“Clean Government Party”), to form the opposition “Chuu dou” or Centrist Reform Alliance (中道改革連合 Chūdō Kaikaku Rengō).
Politics is always at the margins, and the question becomes where the margins are. In Japan, like in America, things are tight when it comes to money, and you can sense that a lot of people are struggling to some degree. The mainstream parties acknowledge this. The communists (“Kyousanto”) put it in starker terms in their brochure: all the money is being sucked up to the top.
You can see this down at the translated bottom of their handout, for candidate Tamura.
Basic wages have been flat or near flat for a LONG time.
Meanwhile, riches going toward, well, capital have been rising up and up to the sky.
If you happen to have some capital behind you, and you are a wage-earner or salary-earner, this is tolerable.
If you’re just scraping by, this seems unfair.
Unfortunately, if you see the money problem and want a solution, the communists have little heft. At the core, they usually don’t believe in private property. So that knocks out like 95% of the potential voter base that does.
Like in America with the Woke culture, it sounds like whenever it comes to putting forth a spread-the-wealth agenda, suddenly the conversation moves to less numbers-focused topics like the treatment of minorities or professional-class women.
(Pronouns really aren’t an issue in Japanese.)
Mao did this sort of stuff, too.
Yeah. So how do the lines get flattened?
In my own analysis, on the margins, I think Japanese society is more to the “money left” or “money progressive” side than where the Establishment would want the result. I also think the People are receptive to contemporary social issues without turning toward a social-issues only party (a/k/a “woke”, formerly “politically correct”, formerly “liberal” and even earlier re-branding.) This is basically the avenue the hippie lawyers of the post McGovern era (1972 failed candidate versus Richard Nixon) turned the US Democrats into–one that keeps rebranding but never delivers on the money.
Since Komeito has always been more money-conscious than LDP, and Komeito seems more disappointed with its recent alliance with LDP, it will be interesting to see what the outcome is if Komeito voters are instructed to support the Chuu Dou alliance. Can the alliance flip enough single-member seats to overcome what might likely be a better result for the LDP on the proportional seats than what LDP obtained in October 2024?
Afterwards, is there actually going to be a fix to people’s money concerns in Japan? Especially, so that old people can live in dignity with real-value pensions (not the Takenaka reform ones), and that young people can be more confident in raising children in contemporary (not postwar hardship) times?
The winning party/coalition is going to have to put numbers on these.
Hoofin 