Current Events > Japan Mad at Conservative-Led Government for Shoving New Invoice System on Them

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2023/09/25/how-tos/freelancer-tax-system/

There's a lot of growing resentment towards the conservative party in Japan for their attempts to ruin the livelihoods of freelancers and small business owners with this new invoice system. One of its most vocal opponents have been prolific voice actors who are worried about not only their cash dwindling but also their privacy being compromised.

Meanwhile, the center-left party is going on the offensive by doing what they can to abolish this law.

https://twitter.com/izmkenta/status/1703356510611644609
https://twitter.com/ShoheiHaraguchi/status/1705975452345721309
https://twitter.com/spacemom2019/status/1706284324943958313
https://twitter.com/STOPINVOICE/status/1706242521695924359

https://twitter.com/Shoji_Kaoru/status/1706467086690849081

Humble_Novice posted...

Meanwhile, the center-left party is going on the offensive by doing what they can to abolish this law.

https://twitter.com/izmkenta/status/1703356510611644609
https://twitter.com/ShoheiHaraguchi/status/1705975452345721309
https://twitter.com/spacemom2019/status/1706284324943958313
https://twitter.com/STOPINVOICE/status/1706242521695924359

What does any of that say? I dont speak a lick of Dutch.

I have no idea what any of that says.

Whoa, maybe overwhelmingly voting a certain party into power just because the leader of the party got assassinated isn't a good basis for determining who should control the government, or something.

Priere posted...

What does any of that say? I dont speak a lick of Dutch.

Oh Baxter, you know I don't speak Spanish

Look man I hate the LDP. I hate them and want them to lose, but they won't. Rikkenmin is so unpopular the next election will have another right wing party become the second largest (but the LDP will still be the largest by far). This particular issue is actually incredibly minor in Japan and not going to affect elections. The main thing people are upset about is inflation and cost of living increases in general. Unfortunately that will not prevent the LDP from easily winning a majority again next election.

https://www.nhk.or.jp/senkyo/shijiritsu/

Opposition is a mess and not sure when or if it will become a relevant force again.

34.1%4.0% 5.8% 2.2%2.3%1.9%0.9%0.4% 480.2% 1.0% 42.8%

Support for parties:
LDP 34.1%
Rikkenmin 4% (center-left opposition TC mentions, former Democratic Party)
Ishin no Kai 5.8% (right-wing Osaka regionalists, somewhat libertarian)
Koumeitou 2.2% (right-wing Buddhist party, ally of LDP)
Communist Party 2.3% (really more of social democrats, explicitly anti-tankie)
Kokumin 1.9% (more right wing nationalist wing of the former center-left Democratic Party)
Reiwa Shinsengumi 0.9% (left wing populist, pretty cool dudes, advocates for the disabled and other minority groups)
Socialist 0.4% (not relevant, not going to get more than one seat at most)
Political Women 0.2%
Sansei 1% (straight up anti-vax far right, immigrant hating, anti-LGBT, Trumpers basically)
No one in particular 42.8% (just LDP voters for the most part who like to pretend they're open to other parties or people who don't bother voting, which is the majority of people)

Kradek posted...

Whoa, maybe overwhelmingly voting a certain party into power just because the leader of the party got assassinated isn't a good basis for determining who should control the government, or something.

They were going to vote for them either way. Abe actually got less popular after being assassinated. Opposition hasn't had a realistic shot at governing since Fukushima.

ssjevot posted...

They were going to vote for them either way. Abe actually got less popular after being assassinated. Opposition hasn't had a realistic shot at governing since Fukushima.

The articles I'm seeing are saying that the party overwhelmingly won 2 days after his assassination. Was this drop in popularity within those 2 days? Because that's a very small timeframe during a time when the world was essential mourning with them, as I believe Japan was as well.

I grant you that as someone who actually lives there you have more insight in terms of general mood towards politics, however do you have any articles supporting your claim (I don't even see anything saying he lost support afterwards).

While the party was likely to still win, I recall the discussion back then having it more competitive and all the articles remark the party's victory as "strong", "sweeps", and "big".

Here's an article from The Nation talking about how his anti-democratic views were whitewashed after his death and how the nation basically came out in support of him and allowed his party the opportunity to do exactly what Republicans would do if something were to happen to Trump and our nation likely also elected Republicans as a result.

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/shinzo-abe-assassination/

TOKYO, JAPANIn the days following the assassination of Shinzo Abe on July 8, heartfelt tributes to the late former prime minister filled television screens, showing fellow party members speaking tearfully in front of reporters and his supporters laying flowers at the site where he was shot. Even the mainstream newspapers, which had been more critical of Abe prior to his death, remembered him as a leader who, despite being controversial, was fiercely determined.

Even though the suspect in Abes assassination has stated that his act was not politically motivated, Abe has been treated as somewhat of a martyr by the nationalist right, including his political successors. In the parliamentary elections that were held just two days after the assassination, the LDP and its partners secured a supermajority in the upper house, which now allows them to begin discussions on revising the Constitution in the parliament. The election victory has undoubtedly emboldened members of the ultranationalist faction of the LDP to carry on Abes legacy. It was the former prime ministers will that we continue on the road toward constitutional revision, LDP policy chief Sanae Takaichi, one of Abes protgs, told reporters after her partys win. With my colleagues, I want to protect the conservative fire he sparked.

I used that article because it is rightfully critical of Abe as a PM and as a politician. They also mention how unpopular he was during his final years, however I don't see any mentions of him losing popularity afterwards.

He became so unpopular the majority opposed the state funeral for him, which they pushed through anyway. The current government is also unpopular. Kishida has about a 30% approval rating. It doesn't matter, his party, the LDP, will still win big. They only need about 35% of the vote to get a majority anyway. What the LDP does or how unpopular they are doesn't matter much currently because there is no meaningful opposition. Rikkenmin will likely disband after the next election (the Democrats are always disbanding, rebranding, becoming weaker and less effective, because why not) when the biggest opposition becomes yet another right wing party with Ishin no Kai. The problem is that the opposition exploded after Fukushima happened under their watch (even though it wasn't really their fault) and has never recovered. There is no real politics outside of internal LDP politics.

https://twitter.com/hellomitz3/status/1706429667568459890

People pissed at losing the competitive advantage they had by being tax exempt. My heart bleeds for them.

By the way that super majority election he is talking about where everyone was apparently sad and voted for his party?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Japanese_House_of_Councillors_election

34% of the vote. About what was expected before the assassination and enough to get a majority of seats.

willythemailboy posted...

People pissed at losing the competitive advantage they had by being tax exempt. My heart bleeds for them.

These are small business owners and freelancers we're talking about here, not big corporations that your side just loves to worship.

Imagine thinking the LDP won't have power for the next hundred years at minimum, lmao.

TheDurinator posted...

Imagine thinking the LDP won't have power for the next hundred years at minimum, lmao.

When you only need 34% of the vote to get a majority, it's pretty hard to lose power. Unless Koumeitou just decides one day they don't want to work with them. Then they would need to get like 38% of the vote. Not that anyone else could form a coalition, but it's at least a plausible scenario.

Japan is effectively a "one-party democracy" under the LDP. Although Japanese society is nominally democratic and is genuinely more liberal and (relatively) progressive than most of its neighbours, the LDP completely controls the social and political narrative. They run elections so often because they know there's basically no chance of losing. If the current PM becomes unpopular they just replace him with someone else at very little cost. It's basically what the tories want for the UK.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


People don't get the public opinion mismatch for the same reason that guy earlier thought they voted for overwhelmingly for the LDP after Abe was killed. If you only need 35% of the vote for a majority you don't need to do what the majority of the public wants, especially when it's 35% of the less than half that even bother to vote.

When the LDP had a race for prime minister they polled the public. People overwhelmingly wanted center-left Kono. He even got the majority of votes from low ranking LDP party members. Didn't matter, he had almost no support in the actual elected party members. We almost got Abe's pick, a literal neo-Nazi, Takaichi despite the public overwhelmingly hating her. Kishida was a compromise candidate liked by no one.

Japan is way better than America, no doubt about it, I would never want to go back there, but the political situation here is not good and not likely to change because the system allows a small minority to run the show regardless of what the public wants.

Humble_Novice posted...

These are small business owners and freelancers we're talking about here, not big corporations that your side just loves to worship.

Your end of the political spectrum constantly says that taxes don't kill businesses. You're not admitting you've been lying all these years, are you?

willythemailboy posted...

Your end of the political spectrum constantly says that taxes don't kill businesses. You're not admitting you've been lying all these years, are you?

Nice try being disingenuous. The left wants big corporations to pay for more taxes. However, the right doesn't give a damn if these greedy monsters get to have all the tax cuts while neglecting small businesses: https://twitter.com/RepLloydDoggett/status/1673693448950644737

Why do you love being such a malicious lying troll?

Humble_Novice posted...

Why do you love being such a malicious lying troll?

No one could ever match your achievements in this field.

willythemailboy posted...

No one could ever match your achievements in this field.

I see all you can do is deflect and project at this point. How pitiful.

Humble_Novice posted...

I see all you can do is deflect and project at this point. How pitiful.

Your shitpost didn't deserve more. Why were you so specific that you only want to tax BIG business, if taxes don't hurt business? Surely small businesses will be equally unaffected, right?

Assuming Japan is similar to the US in this regard, by not taxing small business you're giving nearly half the economy a structural advantage over the other slightly-more-than-half. Pretty stiff penalty to pay for ideologic bullshit if you ask me, but you gotta do you.

Kradek posted...

The articles I'm seeing are saying that the party overwhelmingly won 2 days after his assassination. Was this drop in popularity within those 2 days? Because that's a very small timeframe during a time when the world was essential mourning with them, as I believe Japan was as well.

There was a lot of support for him and his party in the immediate mourning period, but pretty quickly afterward a lot of info came out about his connection to some widely despised organizations that heavily preyed on people for their money, which took out his popularity almost immediately

34% is actually less than what they were polling at before the election (those polls are also in the article I posted). I don't know what the media was saying in America, but we weren't being told about this overwhelmingly support here because it didn't exist.

ssjevot posted...

He became so unpopular the majority opposed the state funeral for him, which they pushed through anyway. The current government is also unpopular. Kishida has about a 30% approval rating. It doesn't matter, his party, the LDP, will still win big. They only need about 35% of the vote to get a majority anyway. What the LDP does or how unpopular they are doesn't matter much currently because there is no meaningful opposition. Rikkenmin will likely disband after the next election (the Democrats are always disbanding, rebranding, becoming weaker and less effective, because why not) when the biggest opposition becomes yet another right wing party with Ishin no Kai. The problem is that the opposition exploded after Fukushima happened under their watch (even though it wasn't really their fault) and has never recovered. There is no real politics outside of internal LDP politics.

Thanks, I appreciate the assessment.

ssjevot posted...

By the way that super majority election he is talking about where everyone was apparently sad and voted for his party?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Japanese_House_of_Councillors_election

34% of the vote. About what was expected before the assassination and enough to get a majority of seats.

Thanks, I was having trouble finding polling data through Google search.

Darkfire12 posted...

There was a lot of support for him and his party in the immediate mourning period, but pretty quickly afterward a lot of info came out about his connection to some widely despised organizations that heavily preyed on people for their money, which took out his popularity almost immediately

Edit: Couldn't remember the name as I was typing originally, but if you want more info on the story look up the Unification Church

I get that, but within 2 days would be pretty damn quick.

In any case, ssjevot has proven their point.