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I literally thought this guy was going to just be Prime Minister till he dropped dead cause Japan doesn't seem to be into the whole democracy thing and choosing better or new leaders thing either these days like most countries that hold elections. I loving hated this guy as much as it's possible to dislike a world leader on the other side of the planet. Incredibly corrupt and unlikable Prime Minister born with a silver spoon in his mouth who liked to start poo poo with neighboring countries like Korea for basically no reason and who never really helped with much of Japan's actual domestic problems, particularly economic ones. Basically the first in the wave of right wing nationalists that have been all the rage in 1st world nations in the 21st century who even tried at times to use things like pop culture to influence Japan's younger generations into being more conservative (with mixed albeit some success) and more receptive to the SDF and his political ambitions for them and to spread a little pro Japan propaganda abroad. There's also the war criminal memorial visits and constant scandals. Most fortunately he never got enough support to complete his lifetime ambition of amending the constitution to allow them to raise and deploy armies overseas again which was wildly unpopular within Japan, particularly among those that grew up remembering the price of war and felt the post war period turmoil in Japan directly. The crazy thing is he was more than unpopular enough to be voted out in the last election, they just didn't because the opposition was seen as not up to the task of governing, but really Japan just doesn't seem keen on trying new things in the 21st century. He really just should not have gotten a 4th term as seems evident to even Japan now, but I imagine whoever his successor is within the LDP just wins the next election in a landslide regardless simply for party affiliation and not being literally Shinzo Abe. e: I just read he'll stay in office till a successor is chosen so that could be a while unfortunately since again Japan has this complex about considering alternatives to this guy and his party. Kale fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Aug 28, 2020 |
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Aug 28, 2020 15:05
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Xelkelvos posted:It's because the LDP has been in power for about 54 out of the last 60 years. That's probably more that Japan is allergic to anyone that isn't the LPD and/or their coalition. I can't speak to how they maintain this dominance in Japanese politics, but they do Congratulations you derived the correct intent from that comment. 
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Aug 29, 2020 01:31
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Suga's particularly unique brand of anti-charisma sees him sitting at 28% approval rating (apparently the lowest in the history of Japan being a Republic) and a level of scathing unpopularity with the youth demographic in Japan in particular that I've never really seen before. Like I really truly don't think I've ever seen Japan this upset about it's politicians to quite this degree ever before. I now see people that normally just talk about video games and anime exclusively on twitter and such suddenly just hemming and hawing about the LDP and how terrible things are going in the country right now and how little hope the LDP governance gives them for the future and it's just such a palpable sentiment almost across the board really. Suga seems particularly disdainful towards younger people even by old-fashioned LDP politician standards so that doesn't help his image much either. Guy was also never even actually elected to his current office and just handed the position as Abe's right hand when he resigned and he just seems like a total rear end in a top hat with nothing to offer as a leader in ways that even Abe managed to avoid and a lot of Abe's ideas where wildly unpopular as well and saw him hit some impressive lows in approval rating. Never quite like this though let alone starting from 75% or so a year ago. If the opposition parties don't have a real shot to make some dents in the LDP hegemony in the next election with their leader sitting at a 28% approval rating and with the general public seemingly having nothing good to say about the current LDP positively ancient 70+ cabinet across the board (and again especially the youth demographic where it's practically apocalyptic levels of scathing rebuke and hatred for their government like they want Suga's head on a platter yesterday) then there will probably never come a time. Just once more in my life time, as somebody with a fondness for the country (albeit fleeting these days with how the country is run and the worrying shift in tone to the far-right under Abe) I'd love to see Japan just stick it the LDP in the next election for what they've subjected their country to in the last 12 years in particular and send a message. I'm not holding my breath though even with Suga at 28% all time low approval ratings. I just don't think the youth has the voting bloc power necessary across the country and old Japan's attachment to the LDP as the standard bearer to vote for without a thought probably just remains too strong even now.  e: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippon_Kaigi Part of the big problem with the LDP and what I think has a lot to do with what is pissing off the youth is this faction of it in particular which Abe and the hand me down government and cabinet of Suga is a part of and thus the LDP remains currently in thrall too and has been able to get out-sized influence on Japanese politics and policy as a whole. It's not the de-facto ideology of the LDP but it remains dangerously close to becoming such if it's not properly checked and continues to wield that level of outsized influence and acts as the sole gateway to high level cabinet positions versus being pushed the back benches of the Diet. I also swear to absolute loving god that organizations like Bleach Japan in Yakuza 7 and Shido's United Future Party in Persona 5 are deliberate critical satire of the Nippon Kaigi with how their brand of blatantly self serving ultra nationalist politics are so similar as. Ditto the fierce resistance and denouncements to them by the protagonists of said games echoing and resonating a lot with the fans and younger people in the country. It can't just be a coincidence. Kale fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 00:27
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Charles 2 of Spain posted:Voters under 30 are the government's strongest demographic. Where can I see this data?
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Aug 18, 2021 02:34
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Charles 2 of Spain posted:https://www.asahi.com/sp/politics/yoron/ Maybe what I'm seeing then is that tendency to just go with the flow in Japanese society and the flow is clearly going against Suga lately so all demographics just kind of tend to follow along and now suddenly it's an anti-Suga sentiment when previously the subject of politics rarely seemed to come up in Japanese social media "trending topics" type stuff for example. Usually that sort of stuff is dominated by anime "otaku"hobbyist bullshit and "Some Johnny's boy band music group did a press conference here's my reaction" and such so to see politics of any sort comes as a bit of a surprise unless it's the Olympics that opened up the topicality of it as something to feel less nervous and reserved about discussing because other people are doing it. I also see this tendency to avoid politics discussion whenever I've come across a video of somebody going around asking Japanese people on the streets about what they feel about movements like Black Lives Matter in the U.S or #MeToo globally. Just this pained nervous look of wanting to be literally anywhere else and searching for that non-answer that will hopefully offend the least amount of people or register the absolute least while also trying to sound somewhat like they are engaged in society and carefully considering their answer as a responsible upstanding citizen. I've also been doing some further reading on the topic though and been finding stats that put the 18-30 demographic as having the best splits for Abe/Suga and the LDP but the lowest return rate for any voting demographic as well. It kind of tells me (and this seems to bear out in analysis too) that rather than specifically being gung ho for Abe/Suga and their policies that they're just kind of disengaged from politics (unless it's a topic like it is right now with the Olympics, new state of emergency and assorted fallout) and just kind of choosing the options they feel will ruffle the least feathers (aka old status quo LDP as it's always been) if they absolutely feel compelled to vote and then focusing on getting on with all the other poo poo they're going to have to deal with as young adults. Kale fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 03:03
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Fine constitutional monarchy, but it sure as hell comes across like an American style republic in how it's been run that I can't help but forget about the whole figurehead Emperor thing and I'm sure America at the time of the treaty would rather they have just foregone the whole tradition entirely. I mean at this point he has several orders of magnitude less public presence than say Queen Elizabeth II that he's pretty easy to forget about.
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Aug 18, 2021 14:36
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 at anyone who ever doubted that the LDP would easily win another majority as it basically always has. After all the average voter wouldn't want to step on any toes or possibly offend anybody by voting for another party or something that isn't the status quo. Perish the thought.
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Nov 1, 2021 14:44
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My issue is more that this whole shying away from talking about politics or willing to be critical of the status quo and just kind of going along with it to avoid potential conflict is more or less incompatible with participatory democracy and all but the entirety of the reason that Japan is a single party system that just happens to hold elections. Like they do seem to be free and fair, just not even close to enough people seem interested in voting for anybody other than the LDP such that any other party will ever hold power ever again other than that one time. It wouldn't be so bad if the current state of that party wasn't stuffed full of Nippon Kaigi right wing nationalist shitheads in the major cabinet positions rather than some of the moderates they count among their members. Not even close to everybody in Japan is onboard with Nippon Kaigi, but I mean they keep voting for this party and then that party gets to appoint it's people and therein lies the hustle of how they get to wield outsized influence despite having some really unpopular ideas and Japan ends up with three Prime Minsters within a year. Like seriously gently caress Nippon Kaigi. Their politicians seem to care more about visiting that war crime shrine, saber rattling with China and Korea over basically nothing, and oppressing women and LGBT groups over some vague sense of nationalism than just about anything else let alone solving Japan's actual problems. Abenomics is a sham, their drive to revise the constitution failed to garner the necessary popular support in order to do so during Abe's appalling long term and is also a sham. Suga was like the worst most unpopular PM they've probably ever had in the history of the country by a long shot in his barely a year in charge and just seemed like a complete incompetent rear end in a top hat with a big mouth and no political or people skills to speak of. He was just some ghoul whip type figure under Abe that only got the job cause he was hand picked by him basically. The current guy Kishida while stated to be more mild mannered and open to compromise is expected to just get pushed around by the Nippon Kaigi hardliners and one of his first policy statements was of course about the stupid Yasukani shrine thing that I swear only Nippon Kaigi people even remotely care about as something important to consider. Like there's really very little reason for Nippon Kaigi to exist let alone being in the drivers seat of Japan's government at this point for how much damage they've managed to do especially under Suga's brief tenure and how much all of their policy pushes and drives have failed miserably. Kale fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Nov 1, 2021 |
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Nov 1, 2021 15:46
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So after a solid decade at least of hammering away at it and abusing Japan's weird hard on for voting LDP majorities in with every election on top of ensuring that the PM candidate is always a Nippon Kaigi fucker.....it looks like that branch of the government is finally getting it's long awaited wish for a military buildup since there's apparently enough public support in the wake of real Chinese and Russian aggression to bump it's spending on defense up from 1 to 2 percent of the national budget. Like I kind of get it since it's based on actual current events and not JUST pure conspiracy or "Nippon Banzai!" Imperial era Japan horseshit , but gently caress Nippon Kaigi shitlords all the same. I doubt I'll be seeing relinquishing their iron grip on Japanese politics in my lifetime and will continue to work to shift the whole country even further to the far-right and nationalist bullshit over the next decade as well. Like all they have to do is ensure that the PM candidate is always a Nippon Kaigi diehard and will appoint a cabinet from that wing of the LDP and since that party wins every single election regardless that's enough to ensure eternal power for the hardliners.
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Dec 17, 2022 15:02
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Tesseraction posted:Sorry, I've been out with covid this week so am more behind on external politics than usual. What happened in Japan? I thought that Kishida was from the relatively less braying warhawk side of the party? He knows how to be a more mask on than Suga and Abe basically but is very much from the Nippon Kaigi far right wing of the LDP. The LDP as I understand it is supposed to be more of a center right conservative party and that's what Japan prefers to vote for when they inevitably vote them into power every single election but Abe and his successors have made sure to handpick their cabinets and other key people from the ultra nationalist right wing Nippon Kaigi faction who among other things want to revert Japan to the Empire of Japan outlook where the emperor enjoyed godlike descended from Amaterasu status.
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Dec 18, 2022 01:19
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Didn't realize Kishida was already polling barely at 30% . My god the LDP may not gain and even lose a seat or two in its majority in the next election if this keeps up
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Dec 22, 2022 15:04
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PT6A posted:Hopefully Japan will finally kill God IRL, generations have been prepared for this task by JRPGs! Never gonna happen. The strong tradition is to vote LDP and "not rock the boat" even though the boat already started taking on a poo poo ton of water in the 90's before Abe and his Abenomics that they've tried what feels like a half dozen times, before the Nippon Kaigi cabinet stacking and before the Unification Church ties got way out of control. The societies just not really built for serious democracy it feels like the way they cling to traditions like "Just Vote LDP" despite brutal approval ratings for the last 3 PM's they've had from the party and clearly not much getting better for it. It's crazy though the LDP has hosed up constantly and consistently and is evidently corrupt as poo poo with cronyism and cult ties and yet tradition saves them every time, but the DPJ has one term, things didn't immediately work out and they ran into some headwinds with internal party fighting over policy implementation and some events beyond their direct control like the tsunami and subsequent Fukushima disaster and it's immediately out with them and just LDP forever and lets have PM's like Suga.
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Dec 23, 2022 15:19
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Tuxedo Gin posted:It shames them into stepping down, but not into policy action. The LDPs game of musical PMs shields the party from blame and allows them to do whatever unpopular poo poo they want and all they have to do is switch PMs and approval goes back to the baseline. Their PM's have been absolute all out dog poo poo ever since Abe yet all it takes for you to be PM is to be the head of the LDP which is the only party Japan will ever consider voting for so it doesn't mean poo poo what their approval ratings are as long as the party doesn't turn on them. They're really not under any threat of losing power regardless of what they do with Kishida in-between now and the next election when the LDP wins another resounding victory over it's disorganized and unconnected in the political world, because they've been shut out of any real power since literally the dawn of the post-empire government system, opponents. When your entire cabinets approval ratings is pushing towards 25% and your electoral prospects in the next election are approaching 100% you may just want to consider giving up the democratic experiment already as there's just nobody holding you accountable anyway.
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Feb 13, 2023 17:52
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Charlz Guybon posted:IIRC, everyone's know about this guy for decades, right? The Japanese Producer culture and wagon circling regarding it in their entertainment industry has all but taken me out of their pop culture completely save for video games thats hanging on by a thread. Bunch of grifting suits looking to monetize everything, overemphais on minimizing personal risk leaving lots of things underfunded, and producers that play by a totally different set of rules (Yasuhi Akimoto much) than your average rank and file designer or actual creative talent rather blatantly. Accountability still needs to visit several more companies yet. Sony Music Japan in particular ought to be next. Despite the downsides of China I also totally get why a lot of people are being lured away to work there lately. Things like actual profit sharing and IP retention rights and just better pay in general is awfully tempting after a while even in the face of weird corporate and national pride that is about the only thing sustaining the current setup where large producers and key suits make all the money and have all the power and everyone else has to get by on commission and dirt pay and be exposed to poo poo like Johnnys scandal. Kale fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Sep 28, 2023 |
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Sep 28, 2023 15:00
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