‘Japanese MAGA' Conservatives Gain Foothold in Diet; Disenchanted Voters See LDP as Ineffective, Elitist

Yomiuri Shimbun

2 days ago

The July 20 House of Councillors election showed that the foundation of Japan's political order has crumbled. Japan, which had been seen as the most stable democracy among the Group of Seven countries, has finally joined the political turbulence seen elsewhere in the world.
The election's biggest impact on the current political situation, of course, is that the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, already a minority in the lower house, have now lost their majority in the upper house as well. But the long-term impact on Japan's political scene will come from the rise of the conservative party Sanseito, whose 'Japanese First' campaign pledges brought it rapid progress and enabled it to establish a bridgehead in the Diet.
Sanseito, which could be described as the Japanese version of the MAGA movement in the United States, won 14 seats in the election. The 7,425,053 votes it received in the proportional representation segment was the third highest total for any party, overtaking the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan. It was a surprising leap. According to its web page, Sanseito was founded in 2020 with the idea that 'there is no political party we want to vote for, so we will create one from scratch.' In the election campaign, it displayed right-wing stances including opposition to excessively accepting foreigners. The party's founder and current leader, Sohei Kamiya, stressed in his street speeches: 'Under the motto of 'Japanese First,' we will make Japanese wealthy. In order to do so, we must defend our land and our life [from foreigners], a role the LDP hasn't been able to fulfill.'
You can see the similarity with U.S. President Donald Trump's campaign pledges and MAGA stance. As The Yomiuri Shimbun's Washington Bureau Chief, I covered the 2016 U.S. presidential election in which the MAGA movement, then called the 'Trump phenomenon,' arose for the first time. Trump mobilized 'forgotten people,' mainly white people who suffered from the effects of liberal political agendas on issues such as globalism, diversity and climate change.
The Democracy Fund Voter Study Group found in 2016 and 2017 surveys that Trump voters had anti-immigrant, anti-globalism and anti-Clinton feelings. About half of them, who were core Trump voters, felt frustrated with agendas advanced by the establishment or political elites, such as building up the global economy, transforming industries that emit carbon dioxide and putting emphasis on diversity.
Such policies pursued by the administration of President Barack Obama, which were likely to have been continued if Hillary Clinton had succeeded him, ultimately had negative impacts on MAGA supporters' lives and incomes. The Obama administration had been seen as not caring much about manufacturing bases moving abroad, taking a hostile view of the coal industry, and prioritizing diversity over religious beliefs. That's why they got really excited about Trump's 'America First' campaign pledges.
A feeling of being excluded, ignored or not spoken for by the political elites is something that MAGA and Sanseito voters have in common. After the death of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and especially after Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba took office, these voters have been feeling the LDP has weakened its conservative and hawkish stances on foreign policy and policies regarding foreigners. They regard the Ishiba Cabinet as 'panda huggers' who are not stern enough toward China. Feeling frustration over an increasing inflow of foreigners, they have baselessly claimed that foreigners have taken advantage of Japan's social system and receive better treatment than Japanese. They have also claimed foreigners cannot obey Japanese rules and customs. In short, they fear that Japan's land and culture will go unprotected and be destroyed by foreigners because the weak-kneed Ishiba administration and old parties such as the LDP, Komeito and the CDPJ have put forward no measures to deal with the problem.
Economically, they regard the LDP as a defender of establishments including big companies, rather than ordinary people who have suffered from inflation, especially after revelations that LDP Diet members had underreported revenue from political fundraising parties.
So conservative voters including LDP supporters — especially those who voted for former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi, known for her hawkish stance, in the last LDP presidential election — ran out of patience and went looking for a party that would speak for them.
Sanseito won them over to its side with hawkish campaign slogans such as 'Don't destroy Japan anymore' and 'At this rate, Japan won't be itself.'
Another commonality between the MAGA and Sanseito movements is that they are driven by social media. Before now, newspaper and TV programs decided which topics had news value in a responsible, fact-based manner, but now social media makes those decisions in an irresponsible manner, sometimes swayed by foreign influence operations, based on the rules of the attention economy.
In the United States, the government disclosed that Russian organizations conducted influence operations through social media in the 2016 presidential election and following ones. In Japan in this upper house election, social media expert Ichiro Yamamoto reported that Russian organizations carried out the same type of influence operations, trying to spread critical opinions about the government's policies on foreign nationals by using bots, which are digital tools that can be used to automatically perform repetitive tasks like reposting or giving out many 'likes.'
How will Sanseito's leap affect Japanese politics? It's too early to be sure, but Sanseito voters will likely continue to show their presence in elections to come, just as MAGA has done. This means Japanese politics will become more divisive, confrontational and populist rather than rational, conciliatory and responsible, echoing the way MAGA has affected U.S. politics. On top of that, as Japan has a parliamentary cabinet system, its politics will become more and more confused, as has happened in European democratic countries.
Political Pulse appears every Saturday.
Satoshi Ogawa
Satoshi Ogawa is the deputy chief of the President's Office of The Yomiuri Shimbun.