Its leader is a former supermarket manager who created his political party on YouTube in the depths of the coronavirus pandemic and campaigned on the Trumpian message “Japanese First.”
Now Japan’s burgeoning right-wing populist party Sanseito has emerged an unlikely winner in parliamentary elections this weekend.
Inspired by other populist right-wing groups that have sprung up in recent years, Sanseito bagged 14 seats in Japan’s upper house, according to public broadcaster NHK – a dramatic increase from the single seat it had occupied previously.
I don’t see this going far in japan, idk what boogie man they’re going to point to. The guy likes to rant about immigration like all these other fascists, but japan just doesn’t have a large immigrant population to begin with. Even the people scared of foreigners who want them out probably recognize that the population is shrinking and aging and mass deportation will only make that worse.
Apparently he is also antisemitic but again not many jews in Japan to blame for its problems.
The appeal for these parties is to bring the country “back” to a homogenous ethnostate and that will magically fix all the problems, but japan already is one and still has a lot of issues.