Japan's Ruling Party Is in Crisis as Voters Swing to Right-Wing Rivals

Communist political parties practically don't exist while authoritarian right wing parties running on austerity, cracking down on personal freedoms, and spreading hate towards all sorts of out-groups are gaining mainstream appeal in a lot of the world.

Unless you're using the bastardized American definition of "radical left" where any viewpoint to the left of centre, like "our systems are crumbling, rich people should be taxed more" is labeled "radical left".

Historically the fascist then, will use economic populist policy. That's like when Hitler built the Autobahn, you alleviate the economic grievances, support for the autocrat cements and then the real fascist stuff begins, that's when term limits go away and their enemies go in the oven.

But they don't do that economic populist part do they? These new right-wing movements in the west aren't doing this part of the equation.

Because we are now in the "interesting", novel case where the autocrats themselves are also just more neoliberals, the real power hasn't really moved an inch, like they are all paid by the same set of oligarchs, power is already fully consolidated. So I suspect nothing much will happen, it will just swing back to the center that shifted the overton window a bit more to the right in the meantime, the status quo didn't change so people are perpetually unhappy with no idea why.

> I feel politics is like this perpetual motion machine where you reach some absolute extreme on end

Yeah man! Totally! It's like when we move from Reaganomics in the 80s to Clintonomics in the 90s, from one "absolute extreme end" to the other! TF

Politics is a perpetual motion machine because there are always people who seek to dramatically increase their own power and will use any excuse to do so - that is a constant. What fluctuates back and forth is which excuses work - that is the apparent pendulum, but it's the same constant driving force underneath. When protecting the country is in vogue, power-seeking sociopaths will use excuses related to protecting the country. When religious freedom is in vogue, power-seeking sociopaths will use excuses related to religious freedom. When liberating the working class is in vogue, power-seeking sociopaths will use excuses related to liberating the working class. Those aren't different sides - they're just different excuses used by the same side.

No, but nationalism is a very common channel to rile up fascist behavior. Make the overly proud, then dehumanize whoever you want them to attack. Once they no longer see that other as a human, all ethics goes out the window.

>is just driving everybody who was kind of in the middle more and more away from the 'name callers.'

Don't act fascist if you don't want to be called one:

>Another issue grabbing national attention is rising numbers of foreign residents and visitors, which has fueled widespread anti-foreigner sentiment that sometimes turns outright xenophobic. Many argue that Japan is at risk of losing its way of life, or that Japanese workers are being edged out of jobs.

Uh huh. A familiar trend the far right takes advantage of. Blame the foreigners than take hostile action towards them.

My only surprise is that the job market in Japan is this impacted. I guess seven a bad economy can dwarf the under-population crisis.

> think you can see this in the US where polls show independents increasingly leaning right on most issues, whereas not that long ago they tended to lean left.

In January, yes. By now, independents in the US have already soured. Maybe they are still right wing, but they realize Far-Right actions aren't it.

Some people might disagree—certainly plenty of right-wing Japanese do disagree—but many also believe that the US alliance and the bases are critical to Japan's greater sovereignty and prosperity. Without the security treaty and cooperation, Japan would on their own against China, diverting far more funds to defense and accepting much higher security risk.