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japanese people have been completely checked out on politics since the 90s recession but I really don't blame them. There's nothing to hope for. The LDP has had such a stranglehold on governance that opposition parties effectively act in coordination with them. The opposition parties have long since been little vassals with the strongest disagreement usually coming from the centrists and centrist leaning social democrats. So while I am disappointed seeing younger japanese people leap headfirst into crypto-fascist nationalism, I mean I can't say I'm too surprised given the landscape. Younger people aren't offered anything else and have been told to eat shit, go to work, keep your head down, never retire. Like the closest thing to grassroots political organizing that Japan has had in decades was Shinzo Abe getting ventilated.
There was some amount of interest in the whole Chuudou Kaikaku thing, the merger with CDP and Komeito, but that seems like it was just cobbling together any sort of response to how popular Takaichi is. She's got a genuine fandom in Japan in a grim sort of mirror to Trump's popularity. This is one of the first times I've seen younger people give a shit about the national diet. I know there are cool Japanese people, like they do have (comparatively) strong labor protections largely due to union activity. And yeah this was bound to happen because there's a lot more immigration into Japan in recent years, and the yen is floundering with inflation. This was bound to result in a reactionary resurgence if there wasn't a viable left wing opposition, which there never really has been. I think this should be a lesson that in the absence of anything else, absence of viable working class organization, that western-aligned liberal democracies will naturally gravitate towards reaction when there are economic issues such as labor shortages and inflation.
I mean furthermore the western powers want someone like Takaichi because they want someone to be a bullwark against China, and she's a fascist lunatic so I guess she works
There are also barely any younger people. The demographics of Japan are the worst of pretty much any country and their complete adversion against anyone not Japanese is not helping. They are projected to have 10-20 million people LESS within the next 20 years. The villages and small towns are already emptying, everyone is old as fuck and their economy is stagnating for 30 years.
The doomsday clock is ticking for all of us, but Japan really does a speedrun of societal collapse. More quite and polite than in the US or elsewhere. But thorough and devastating nonetheless.
Imo revolutionary moments happen in younger countries all the time. Drastic change is quite hard/unlikely in aging societies until hopeless situations arise. The youngest continent in the world: Africa, will become more important.
Japan represents the future of Germany and France a few years ahead of time.
The AES is only the beginning.