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This video examines the increasing support for alt-right ideologies in Japan. In particular, it looks at the Sanseitō party, which recently boosted its presence in Japan's upper house to 15 members from the previous 1. Factors behind this include anti-immigrant sentiment, rising prices, and general discontent with the long-ruling LDP.
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White supremacists see Japan as a poster child for their own future ethno-state. They imagine that Japan is an ethnically pure utopia, without realising that Japan is just another country populated by people who share the same problems as anyone else in the world.
It's such a weird coincidence that capitalism's boom and bust cycle is always concomitant with the rise and fall of fascism. Perhaps there is a link.
By "they" I guess you mean those "filthy backwards immigrants" but in this case the people wanting burial rights are Japanese people who have converted to Islam. There are over 50k Japanese converts who are citizens and they deserve their rights to be respected. You can keep crusading against the non Japanese foreigner Muslims though.
Thanks for adding info. Thats helpful to know. But maybe a bit harsh to the dude above? Sounds like you want justice in the world. Could be helpful to assume better intentions in our interlocutors.
Very harsh lmao. As I noted, I didn't fully read nor watch this video
All I stated that I saw a post how Japans goverment denied request for burials. Way to twist " they" into something nasty lmao.
I feel like you guys talk about Japan but have never actually talked to Japanese people because what even are you talking about?
First of all, people who live inaka actually have a reputation of being quite friendly, it's people from Tokyo who have a reputation of being quite cold. Like I regularly travel around kind of rural parts of Japan and most of those people are legitimately nice as hell, IDK what you're talking about.
Second of all, Japanese youth are like as multicultural as Japan has ever been, are just objectively not tapped into politics in the first place, and also are much more concerned about the cost of living crisis than immigration. The older generations are like objectively the xenophobic ones and are mostly in control of national politics.
Also, to be clear: sanseito did not actually gain much in the election. They're still a tiny minority party (like 6%) and a lot of the people who voted for them are older LDP voters who basically protest voted because of the whole unification church scandal. They're not voting because they're afraid of immigrants generally changing Japan, they're voting because a literal foreign cult had significant power in their government and there's a massive ongoing scandal because of it.
You guys legitimately give me a headache because you just make up theories based often on what is happening in the US that if you bothered to just talk Japanese people you could see aren't reflective of what is happening in Japan.
That may be applicable to some situations and countries, but definitely not all.
Take what is happening in the US, for example. Many of the immigrants being grabbed by ICE are far more "American" in their ethos and mannerisms (hard workers, raising their children to respect American traditions, committed to bettering their communities) than a large portion of homegrown conservatives, who often do none of these things.
Far right ideologies rise when people are disenfranchised politically and/or economically depressed and opportunistic political entities blame those things on an Other - immigrants, LGBT people, women’s equality etc. to advance their agenda.
Especially in Japan where immigrants as a whole are such a small fraction of the population compared to Western countries. It’s just a boogeyman to blame after decades of failed economics since the 1980s.
I think a lot of people are leaving their country and immigrating because it becomes hard to live in your country when western countries come and destroy it and make it unlivable. Also I believe you are talking about Christianity with your first point right?
Are you talking about Christians? They came to my country in battleships and forced us to believe in their religion, speak their language, celebrate their holidays, conform to their dietary customs, etc. Some people do leave their home countries and go to other countries so they can enforce their ways upon other people. But not the people that these Japanese protestors are worried about. They came to Japan to work, not to conquer the country. If they do then they're gonna need battleships and soldiers to do that, just like Christians did.
Japanese converts to Islam are demanding burial rights! NOT those pesky IMMIGRANTS that you want to crusade against. They are citizens and they have the right to practice their faith. I can see your post history to know why you have such an itching feeling about this.
You talking about colonization? Yea, why do the Euros feel so proud of it while simultaneously spending their whole time being afraid that it happens to them? Make it make sense?
"When I want to strip women of their rights and have them locked in the house as nothing more then baby makers it's based and trad pilled, when brown people do it it's cringe and barbaric" -avg incel
It’s funny because enforcing their own religious sensibilities is exactly what Christian missionaries did in Japan until Hideyoshi kicked them out in 1587, and exactly what Muslims are NOT doing in Japan in 2025. Opening up restaurants and markets serving halal food gives them ways to serve their community without impacting locals (other than offering delicious shawarma); they’re not saying everyone needs to eat halal. Negotiating for graveyards that will accommodate their burial practices is the same; they’re not trying to end the practice of cremation. Do you see muslims patrolling the Golden-gai trying to stop people from drinking alcohol?
Assimilation doesn't happen instantly. It takes decades, even a generation or two. Expecting people to just immediately be completely different is insane.
I battle with this thought. I think almost all countries citizens will not be ok with immigrants coming in and changing the culture. There's a juggling act of letting some in, but not enough to make things change. Is that right? A lot will say yes. But is it wrong? I don't know... I wouldn't want to change my culture if my country was one way, then starting to change because others were coming in and forcing it to change to their ways. But I don't really think my way is the right way and theirs is wrong. In a way it was my home and they changed it without my permission it feels like, but isn't that over entitlement? Don't have an answer.
Ask the indigenous people of basically any country how they feel about foreigners coming in and changing the culture. I dont think any of us that live in colonized nations really have a leg to stand on when it comes to so called assimilation when in most western countries the suppression of the original cultures is still on going.
Original? You mean neanderthals? Who deserves land? Those that find it first? Those that develop it? Those that conquer it? Even American indians were fighting each other over territories. I don't have an answer for this either, but I think these topics are too sensitive for most.
I’m not following the logic to this argument. Natives of ‘new world’ countries had their cultures suppressed by colonisation. Therefore, people in Western countries shouldn’t oppose the having their own cultures be changed? Are you acknowledging that the latter is not a good thing? If so, how can you expect westerners to allow it to happen to them?
Doesn't that go against your point? If others coming changing the culture was bad for them then why would I want the same thing to happen to me? Only if I was a fool honestly.
If you want the answers go look at research and data, and not make up your decision based on feelings and emotions.
For example, in the US, data shows by 3rd generation, immigrants assimilate and are indistinguishable from the general population. 2nd generation immigrants are also much closer to the general population than their parents.
If Japan doesn't allow immigration, they will just die out and their country will fall apart, plain and simple.
Three generations is a long time. For anyone who cares about preserving liberalism, it’s not wrong to limit the amount of fundamentalist Islamists coming into the country. Just look at the grooming scandal in England that the govt tried to cover up for so long
They're currently trying to influence the UK, Farage is quite close with Trump and eyeing up the PM role. There's also Wilders in Netherlands and, Le Penn in France for example. It's just worrying how much this right wing populism strain is spreading.
The majority are apolitical and apathetic, the far-left burnt out in the 70s, the ruling LDP is a big tent party with center-right and far-right factions, and depending on which faction the PM belongs to and which other parties are joining them as junior coalition members has a lot to do with who far right they shift. Takaichi represents the hawks and hardliners, and the LDP’s junior partner Komeito (a party associated with a lay-Buddhist org that some refer to as a cult but politically to the left of LDP and with diplomatically friendly relations with China) dropped out of the coalition in hopes of stopping Takaichi’s ascendency, but a quasi-libertarian party(in the US “privatize everything” sense of the word) called Ishin stepped in to join a new coalition to back her. So the LDP is in the hands of a fairly far-right faction, but also facing a legitimately far-right upstart party stealing some of their thunder and pushing them to take a more hardline stance on immigration and anti-China defense rhetoric. So while the population of politically engaged people have always been split into roughly equal liberal/conservative camps, the ruling government is currently pushing the needle.
Not sure what Muslim countries have to do with Japanese Right-Wing politics…
Also the term “First World” is a bit archaic in this context. If you mean it by the Cold War definition then you have the issue of Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey being Cold War era “First World” nations, all majority Muslim. If you mean highly developed with high standards of living, I’m sure Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and more have a good claim to the title. If you mean westernised… you may wanna rethink this metric as globalisation has sort of made the idea of Westernisation moot. But I assume your comment stems more from racism than anything else.
Except Japan is like 99% Japanese and these are still blaming Muslims. Japan is literally collapsing their economy because they don’t wanna make any policy that will be favorable to increasing births or allowing some level of legal immigration.
don’t wanna make any policy that will be favorable to increasing births
Except they did. Earlier this year, the government implemented 4 day work weeks for all government employees. They also created incentives to encourage remote work. 38% of Tokyo's residents now work from home. Compared that to New York, which estimates 13-14% working from home.
Probably because you don't even need a large population when you've got robots and social trust. Even if there were only 100 Japanese remaining they'd be 100 that were happy.
There's this study from 15 years ago where they surveyed Japanese people about their attitude towards foreigners and crime. On average, respondents thought 25% of crimes were committed by foreigners. 14% of participants believed that it was over 50%. The actual figure was 1%.
I doubt the gap between belief and reality has gotten significantly smaller since. There are more foreigners now, so there's probably also more foreign crime, but I also get the impression that anti-foreigner sentiment and fearmongering have more than kept up with that.
There's a reason for the global trend: The rich have spent the past 70 years doing focus testing and studying brains to figure out how to control people.
They arrived at the same conclusions that modern neuroscience is now discovering with fMRI studies: About a third of the population in every country has a brain wired to conserve energy at all costs. These brains hate cognitive dissonance and experience pain from it much more intensely than the other 70% of the population.
Critical thinking feels terrible to these people, to the point that they much prefer to have someone else do it for them. So they end up believing whatever explanation they hear that causes the least cognitive dissonance.
This 30% of the population is overwhelmingly conservative as a result, because things like climate change and social justice require you to confront hard truths, and their brains are wired to shut down anything that causes cognitive dissonance. That's why they always immediately resort to personal attacks when confronted, and prefer bullying to polite, civil discourse.
The wealthy have figured out exactly how to manipulate this 30% of the population and the practice is now spreading all over the world.
Conservative populism is the main vector of transmission because it requires the lowest amount of cognitive energy, delivering simple explanations for complex topics that affirm the bigoted instincts people tend to have.
Rather than wrapping their heads around second- and third-order effects, like exploitation and war in developing nations destabilizing them and driving immigration to developed nations, conservatives eat up simple explanations that scapegoat immigrants as murderous barbarians invading their communities to take them over and replace the locals.
One explanation required a lot of nuance and thought, while the other is basically the most primitive, territorial, "Us v Them" instinct possible.
I have always mistrusted “efficiency” and now you give me a whole new reason to do so. Apparently people wired for maximal energy efficiency in thinking are… a serious problem.
They want to spread awareness of their cause to overseas media consumers.
And to warn local foreigners that they are a growing group to be reckoned with.
I don't know if it's fair to categorize them as being right wing just for being upset at migrants committing crimes at very high rates instead of assimilating. Well unless you want to say it's left wing to be pro crime.
These conservative idiots always swoop in when a situation is bad. They show up and just say "it's simple, ____ is the problem!!" without taking any nuance or context into consideration. The people are already pissed off and are looking for someone to blame, so a lot of them join the conservatives because it makes them feel better that someone has an answer, even if it is flawed.
my wife is native Japanese, and it's been interesting speaking with her about this (we've lived in the US for more than half of her life, are both democrat and very anti-maga/trump).
she (and apparently many others in Japan) have been following recent politics in Japan extremely closely since Takaichi became PM. like she's glued to her phone every day watching televised political debates/discussions. she is very excited about Japanese politics now, and says these discussions are completely different from prior old boring discussions that no regular people really cared about or could follow.
we have gotten into disagreements about the immigration thing. while still overall low numbers compared to many other countries, immigration has been increasing rapidly over the past several years. Japanese people are in general very friendly to tourists, but stories of jerks who come over and and are very loud/disrespectful, especially at shrines/temples, are getting publicized more and more and swaying public opinion.
my wife thinks that Japan is different from the US, and that should be ok. US was founded on immigration, and was build from the ground up to be a melting pot, and its a good thing! Japan, on the other hand, has a very homogenous population, and a culture that has developed over hundreds/thousands of years. Japanese people like their culture and are proud of it, and almost all Japanese people prioritize maintaining the community/culture over their individuality. people wait in line in the appropriate spots and don't try to cut ahead. people on trains stay quiet and mind their own business, and don't speak loudly on their cell phones. cashiers and other low-pay workers are extremely polite and do their jobs well. kids in school participate in cleaning up the rooms and helping with the lunches etc. everyone understands the same language and unique cultural references etc. it goes on and on. rightly or wrongly, Japanese people are afraid of losing this cultural identity and social cohesion. there are stories in Japanese media that describe how foreigners move to Japan and then demand that Japan change to accommodate them and their culture. I think the right wing parties and using these stories to stir up fear in the population, and it's working. I've also tried to discuss the population crisis, and how Japan absolutely needs more immigrants to avoid a catastrophic collapse, but it was very difficult to get her to see this (after watching several videos and going over the math with regards to population numbers, I think she does see the real problem now, but the vast majority of the population just don't understand the math and the looming danger)
This is a fascinating and truly thought-provoking answer. Given the population crisis, perhaps, the government can do something to convince Japanese expatriates and their descendants to return to Japan.
The problem is integration. Europe is realizing that some cultures aren’t compatible with European values. Japan doesn’t want to be next PRECISELY because they need immigrants.
TBF, Japan has always been Xenophobic, though those views are more predominant in older generations. Which, are the same people who run the government.
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Who is doing that? Are you sure the objection isn't just that they're different in a way that isn't liked by locals?
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Thought we were talking about Japan
White supremacists see Japan as a poster child for their own future ethno-state. They imagine that Japan is an ethnically pure utopia, without realising that Japan is just another country populated by people who share the same problems as anyone else in the world.
It's such a weird coincidence that capitalism's boom and bust cycle is always concomitant with the rise and fall of fascism. Perhaps there is a link.
It's not just Japan. A strange number of these dipsticks have an awkward boner for Israel too. Fucking weird.
TELL EM BORTHER! FREEDOM YEAHHHH
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By "they" I guess you mean those "filthy backwards immigrants" but in this case the people wanting burial rights are Japanese people who have converted to Islam. There are over 50k Japanese converts who are citizens and they deserve their rights to be respected. You can keep crusading against the non Japanese foreigner Muslims though.
Thanks for adding info. Thats helpful to know. But maybe a bit harsh to the dude above? Sounds like you want justice in the world. Could be helpful to assume better intentions in our interlocutors.
Very harsh lmao. As I noted, I didn't fully read nor watch this video All I stated that I saw a post how Japans goverment denied request for burials. Way to twist " they" into something nasty lmao.
Not you. The person I replied to.
Since you haven't watched the documentary, keep quiet. You don't get to comment based on what you think the documentary is about.
Other people existing in their traditional ways somewhat closer to you isn't "pushing".
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I feel like you guys talk about Japan but have never actually talked to Japanese people because what even are you talking about?
First of all, people who live inaka actually have a reputation of being quite friendly, it's people from Tokyo who have a reputation of being quite cold. Like I regularly travel around kind of rural parts of Japan and most of those people are legitimately nice as hell, IDK what you're talking about.
Second of all, Japanese youth are like as multicultural as Japan has ever been, are just objectively not tapped into politics in the first place, and also are much more concerned about the cost of living crisis than immigration. The older generations are like objectively the xenophobic ones and are mostly in control of national politics.
Also, to be clear: sanseito did not actually gain much in the election. They're still a tiny minority party (like 6%) and a lot of the people who voted for them are older LDP voters who basically protest voted because of the whole unification church scandal. They're not voting because they're afraid of immigrants generally changing Japan, they're voting because a literal foreign cult had significant power in their government and there's a massive ongoing scandal because of it.
You guys legitimately give me a headache because you just make up theories based often on what is happening in the US that if you bothered to just talk Japanese people you could see aren't reflective of what is happening in Japan.
This. Seriously.
That may be applicable to some situations and countries, but definitely not all.
Take what is happening in the US, for example. Many of the immigrants being grabbed by ICE are far more "American" in their ethos and mannerisms (hard workers, raising their children to respect American traditions, committed to bettering their communities) than a large portion of homegrown conservatives, who often do none of these things.
Edit: take for example nonsense like this, which to my mind is particularly unpatriotic: https://people.com/immigrants-approved-for-citizenship-pulled-out-by-officials-at-oath-ceremony-11863779
Nobody is doing that.
Far right ideologies rise when people are disenfranchised politically and/or economically depressed and opportunistic political entities blame those things on an Other - immigrants, LGBT people, women’s equality etc. to advance their agenda.
Especially in Japan where immigrants as a whole are such a small fraction of the population compared to Western countries. It’s just a boogeyman to blame after decades of failed economics since the 1980s.
I think a lot of people are leaving their country and immigrating because it becomes hard to live in your country when western countries come and destroy it and make it unlivable. Also I believe you are talking about Christianity with your first point right?
Are you talking about Christians? They came to my country in battleships and forced us to believe in their religion, speak their language, celebrate their holidays, conform to their dietary customs, etc. Some people do leave their home countries and go to other countries so they can enforce their ways upon other people. But not the people that these Japanese protestors are worried about. They came to Japan to work, not to conquer the country. If they do then they're gonna need battleships and soldiers to do that, just like Christians did.
Japanese converts to Islam are demanding burial rights! NOT those pesky IMMIGRANTS that you want to crusade against. They are citizens and they have the right to practice their faith. I can see your post history to know why you have such an itching feeling about this.
You talking about colonization? Yea, why do the Euros feel so proud of it while simultaneously spending their whole time being afraid that it happens to them? Make it make sense?
Well perhaps it's more of an invasion than a migration?
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‘They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats’
Redpilled incels are just as "stone-age" as the Islamists they hate.
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"When I want to strip women of their rights and have them locked in the house as nothing more then baby makers it's based and trad pilled, when brown people do it it's cringe and barbaric" -avg incel
It’s funny because enforcing their own religious sensibilities is exactly what Christian missionaries did in Japan until Hideyoshi kicked them out in 1587, and exactly what Muslims are NOT doing in Japan in 2025. Opening up restaurants and markets serving halal food gives them ways to serve their community without impacting locals (other than offering delicious shawarma); they’re not saying everyone needs to eat halal. Negotiating for graveyards that will accommodate their burial practices is the same; they’re not trying to end the practice of cremation. Do you see muslims patrolling the Golden-gai trying to stop people from drinking alcohol?
Assimilation doesn't happen instantly. It takes decades, even a generation or two. Expecting people to just immediately be completely different is insane.
I battle with this thought. I think almost all countries citizens will not be ok with immigrants coming in and changing the culture. There's a juggling act of letting some in, but not enough to make things change. Is that right? A lot will say yes. But is it wrong? I don't know... I wouldn't want to change my culture if my country was one way, then starting to change because others were coming in and forcing it to change to their ways. But I don't really think my way is the right way and theirs is wrong. In a way it was my home and they changed it without my permission it feels like, but isn't that over entitlement? Don't have an answer.
Ask the indigenous people of basically any country how they feel about foreigners coming in and changing the culture. I dont think any of us that live in colonized nations really have a leg to stand on when it comes to so called assimilation when in most western countries the suppression of the original cultures is still on going.
Uh western doesn’t mean American
Canada?
Original? You mean neanderthals? Who deserves land? Those that find it first? Those that develop it? Those that conquer it? Even American indians were fighting each other over territories. I don't have an answer for this either, but I think these topics are too sensitive for most.
I’m not following the logic to this argument. Natives of ‘new world’ countries had their cultures suppressed by colonisation. Therefore, people in Western countries shouldn’t oppose the having their own cultures be changed? Are you acknowledging that the latter is not a good thing? If so, how can you expect westerners to allow it to happen to them?
Doesn't that go against your point? If others coming changing the culture was bad for them then why would I want the same thing to happen to me? Only if I was a fool honestly.
If you want the answers go look at research and data, and not make up your decision based on feelings and emotions.
For example, in the US, data shows by 3rd generation, immigrants assimilate and are indistinguishable from the general population. 2nd generation immigrants are also much closer to the general population than their parents.
If Japan doesn't allow immigration, they will just die out and their country will fall apart, plain and simple.
Three generations is a long time. For anyone who cares about preserving liberalism, it’s not wrong to limit the amount of fundamentalist Islamists coming into the country. Just look at the grooming scandal in England that the govt tried to cover up for so long
Forgive my ignorance but there was even a time when Japan wasn't right wing?
That was my thought. Maybe more right than usual?
Taking the dive down the weird gooner right wing circle jerk that is running the US
It's happening globally. Which should be more alarming, but people pretend like it's localized only in the States.
The trend is definitely global, I was more pointing to the particularly stupid and virulent brand that's happening in the us
They're currently trying to influence the UK, Farage is quite close with Trump and eyeing up the PM role. There's also Wilders in Netherlands and, Le Penn in France for example. It's just worrying how much this right wing populism strain is spreading.
Yeah, Shinzo Abe was attached to a grouo trying to bring back state Shinto. I'm not sure how much further to the right you can get.
The Shanghai and Nanjing massacres?
They refuse to recognize them / any war crimes.
One can promote leaving economic control in the hands of individuals and groups instead of establishing a state anything, for one
The majority are apolitical and apathetic, the far-left burnt out in the 70s, the ruling LDP is a big tent party with center-right and far-right factions, and depending on which faction the PM belongs to and which other parties are joining them as junior coalition members has a lot to do with who far right they shift. Takaichi represents the hawks and hardliners, and the LDP’s junior partner Komeito (a party associated with a lay-Buddhist org that some refer to as a cult but politically to the left of LDP and with diplomatically friendly relations with China) dropped out of the coalition in hopes of stopping Takaichi’s ascendency, but a quasi-libertarian party(in the US “privatize everything” sense of the word) called Ishin stepped in to join a new coalition to back her. So the LDP is in the hands of a fairly far-right faction, but also facing a legitimately far-right upstart party stealing some of their thunder and pushing them to take a more hardline stance on immigration and anti-China defense rhetoric. So while the population of politically engaged people have always been split into roughly equal liberal/conservative camps, the ruling government is currently pushing the needle.
That’s a good chewy thoughtful answer, thank you.
Maybe the short-lived time when Tetsu Katayama was prime minister, but even that was less than a year
Make America and NATO to stop bombing Muslim countries to hell, making them unlivable and that should stop their migration to first world countries.
Not sure what Muslim countries have to do with Japanese Right-Wing politics…
Also the term “First World” is a bit archaic in this context. If you mean it by the Cold War definition then you have the issue of Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey being Cold War era “First World” nations, all majority Muslim. If you mean highly developed with high standards of living, I’m sure Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and more have a good claim to the title. If you mean westernised… you may wanna rethink this metric as globalisation has sort of made the idea of Westernisation moot. But I assume your comment stems more from racism than anything else.
They probably just saw the thumbnail and responded based on that.
"Gaining" lol come on
And round and round we go
It seems it's happening across Europe, look at France, Germany, Poland, Spain. Similarly to the mass migration nobody voted for.
Except Japan is like 99% Japanese and these are still blaming Muslims. Japan is literally collapsing their economy because they don’t wanna make any policy that will be favorable to increasing births or allowing some level of legal immigration.
don’t wanna make any policy that will be favorable to increasing births
Except they did. Earlier this year, the government implemented 4 day work weeks for all government employees. They also created incentives to encourage remote work. 38% of Tokyo's residents now work from home. Compared that to New York, which estimates 13-14% working from home.
Edit: sources
4 day work week
Remote work rate 38% in Tokyo
This isn’t doing a damn thing lol.
You can disagree with the effectiveness of the policy without making a false claim that they are not trying to do something.
They're trying to do something, which is not what you claimed.
Also, it's only been several months, brainiac. Expecting results immediately is absolute ignorance.
38% work from home? 4 day work week? What alternative reality is this?
4 day work week
Remote work rate 38% in Tokyo
It's our reality.
Probably because you don't even need a large population when you've got robots and social trust. Even if there were only 100 Japanese remaining they'd be 100 that were happy.
There's this study from 15 years ago where they surveyed Japanese people about their attitude towards foreigners and crime. On average, respondents thought 25% of crimes were committed by foreigners. 14% of participants believed that it was over 50%. The actual figure was 1%.
I doubt the gap between belief and reality has gotten significantly smaller since. There are more foreigners now, so there's probably also more foreign crime, but I also get the impression that anti-foreigner sentiment and fearmongering have more than kept up with that.
There's a reason for the global trend: The rich have spent the past 70 years doing focus testing and studying brains to figure out how to control people.
They arrived at the same conclusions that modern neuroscience is now discovering with fMRI studies: About a third of the population in every country has a brain wired to conserve energy at all costs. These brains hate cognitive dissonance and experience pain from it much more intensely than the other 70% of the population.
Critical thinking feels terrible to these people, to the point that they much prefer to have someone else do it for them. So they end up believing whatever explanation they hear that causes the least cognitive dissonance.
This 30% of the population is overwhelmingly conservative as a result, because things like climate change and social justice require you to confront hard truths, and their brains are wired to shut down anything that causes cognitive dissonance. That's why they always immediately resort to personal attacks when confronted, and prefer bullying to polite, civil discourse.
The wealthy have figured out exactly how to manipulate this 30% of the population and the practice is now spreading all over the world.
Conservative populism is the main vector of transmission because it requires the lowest amount of cognitive energy, delivering simple explanations for complex topics that affirm the bigoted instincts people tend to have.
Rather than wrapping their heads around second- and third-order effects, like exploitation and war in developing nations destabilizing them and driving immigration to developed nations, conservatives eat up simple explanations that scapegoat immigrants as murderous barbarians invading their communities to take them over and replace the locals.
One explanation required a lot of nuance and thought, while the other is basically the most primitive, territorial, "Us v Them" instinct possible.
I have always mistrusted “efficiency” and now you give me a whole new reason to do so. Apparently people wired for maximal energy efficiency in thinking are… a serious problem.
I think it's more about rising crime statistics
Weird the sign is in English.
Both of the sides have signs in English. Media appeal? Who knows.
You must be new.
They want to spread awareness of their cause to overseas media consumers.
And to warn local foreigners that they are a growing group to be reckoned with.
Source: I've seen protesters myself in Tokyo.
Thought the sign said MUSEUMS not welcome
I don't know if it's fair to categorize them as being right wing just for being upset at migrants committing crimes at very high rates instead of assimilating. Well unless you want to say it's left wing to be pro crime.
This is Japan where migrants pretty much don't exist, and crime is a non issue.
And by limiting migration further they can prevent it from ever becoming a serious issue. An ounce of prevention beats an pound of cure.
These conservative idiots always swoop in when a situation is bad. They show up and just say "it's simple, ____ is the problem!!" without taking any nuance or context into consideration. The people are already pissed off and are looking for someone to blame, so a lot of them join the conservatives because it makes them feel better that someone has an answer, even if it is flawed.
my wife is native Japanese, and it's been interesting speaking with her about this (we've lived in the US for more than half of her life, are both democrat and very anti-maga/trump).
she (and apparently many others in Japan) have been following recent politics in Japan extremely closely since Takaichi became PM. like she's glued to her phone every day watching televised political debates/discussions. she is very excited about Japanese politics now, and says these discussions are completely different from prior old boring discussions that no regular people really cared about or could follow.
we have gotten into disagreements about the immigration thing. while still overall low numbers compared to many other countries, immigration has been increasing rapidly over the past several years. Japanese people are in general very friendly to tourists, but stories of jerks who come over and and are very loud/disrespectful, especially at shrines/temples, are getting publicized more and more and swaying public opinion.
my wife thinks that Japan is different from the US, and that should be ok. US was founded on immigration, and was build from the ground up to be a melting pot, and its a good thing! Japan, on the other hand, has a very homogenous population, and a culture that has developed over hundreds/thousands of years. Japanese people like their culture and are proud of it, and almost all Japanese people prioritize maintaining the community/culture over their individuality. people wait in line in the appropriate spots and don't try to cut ahead. people on trains stay quiet and mind their own business, and don't speak loudly on their cell phones. cashiers and other low-pay workers are extremely polite and do their jobs well. kids in school participate in cleaning up the rooms and helping with the lunches etc. everyone understands the same language and unique cultural references etc. it goes on and on. rightly or wrongly, Japanese people are afraid of losing this cultural identity and social cohesion. there are stories in Japanese media that describe how foreigners move to Japan and then demand that Japan change to accommodate them and their culture. I think the right wing parties and using these stories to stir up fear in the population, and it's working. I've also tried to discuss the population crisis, and how Japan absolutely needs more immigrants to avoid a catastrophic collapse, but it was very difficult to get her to see this (after watching several videos and going over the math with regards to population numbers, I think she does see the real problem now, but the vast majority of the population just don't understand the math and the looming danger)
This is a fascinating and truly thought-provoking answer. Given the population crisis, perhaps, the government can do something to convince Japanese expatriates and their descendants to return to Japan.
The problem is integration. Europe is realizing that some cultures aren’t compatible with European values. Japan doesn’t want to be next PRECISELY because they need immigrants.
the answer is always social media. it is a scourge on our planet.
Japan has always been right wing. They are to the right on almost all social, economic and political issues.
They were an Axis power in WW2, there’s no rise here, the pool’s always been full.
TBF, Japan has always been Xenophobic, though those views are more predominant in older generations. Which, are the same people who run the government.
American streamers?