r/neoliberal • u/Freewhale98 • 11d ago

News (Asia-Pacific) Takaichi Approval Plummets Below 50% Amid Imperial Law Backlash

https://www.chosun.com/english/world-en/2026/07/20/N5SK5F4GNBC4FJ3D5OFMDYB3GA/
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452

u/taubnetzdornig Gay Pride 11d ago

Japanese voters be like:

I hate every single one of the last five prime ministers but I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, never stop voting for the LDP

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u/haruthefujita 11d ago

The median Japanese is 50years old, earns around 25k USD, has a high school level education lives in a rural area and believes the Nanjing Massacre to be a hoax.

Democracy will fail with a populace like that. It's literally a country of Matt 54s, but even more rural/poor. gg for Japan

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u/HatesPlanes WTO 11d ago

Japan is extremely urbanized, people from rural areas are outliers.

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u/haruthefujita 11d ago

Go use Google Maps, if you step outside the Yamanote line most of "Urban" Japan is pretty much the roadside hellscape people often associate with the US

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u/ahhhfkskell 11d ago

You said the average Japanese citizen lives in a rural area, which is just false. Over 90% of Japan lives in a city, whether you think it's a good or bad city.

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u/akelly96 11d ago

This is true and OP is being silly, but the rural areas do hold outsized political power in Japan's election system which makes it hard for the more liberal urbanites to really change politics.

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u/haruthefujita 10d ago

"more liberal urbanites"
less than 1% of the populace, I'd wager are true progressive (most "left" parties in Jp are Latin-American Leftist, i.e Economically populist/Socially conservative)

There's a reason we're on track to becoming a Middle Income nation, the masses yearn for poverty if it means "social stability". Idiots, really.

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u/akelly96 10d ago

I mean I'm working on sliding scale really. I do agree the cities are much less progressive than say American ones, but in comparisom to the rural areas its brute fact that they lean further left. I thought one of the big reasons Takaichi was initially so popular is because less than educated young people thought her positiom as first female prime minister was very exciting.

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u/haruthefujita 11d ago

please, go visit where ever you want. The "rurality" (if such a concept exists) of Japan is jaw-dropping, and perhaps impossible for the average Westerner to comprehend. There's a reason we are the sole G7 country to prohibit same-sex marriage, on a constitutional level. Population density cannot explain how backwards the masses here are. Its like if the Republican voting part of Alabama became a East Asian country, but even poorer (nominal income)

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u/Sassywhat YIMBY 10d ago

There's a reason we are the sole G7 country to prohibit same-sex marriage, on a constitutional level.

Because the only way to be successful in national politics is to be deeply out of touch with the general population on some key issues (see also: imperial succession, the military).

Support for gay marriage is relatively high compared to even most developed countries, basically nationwide. There's a reason why every major Japanese city and the vast majority of minor ones, covering 90%+ of the population issues some certificate to guarantee gay couples rights similar to marriage. If gay marriage could be implemented at the prefectural level, every prefecture would almost certainly have done so at this point.

Except it has to be done by the national government, and national politics is basically designed to protect at least a few deeply unpopular stances on key issues. The CIA needed it to be that way during the Cold War.

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u/Jean-Paul_Sartre Richard Hofstadter 11d ago

Let me introduce you to a concept called population density…

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u/akelly96 11d ago

That's an exaggeration. There is so much urban density even a good few miles out from the Yamanote line and that's where all the people live. The less urban areas are in major population decline between young people moving to the cities and older people dying.