As Japan’s far-right gains political and ideological force, can the center hold? It is a familiar question, one that is now rapidly gaining salience after Takaichi Sanae was elected leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and entered into a “confidence-and-supply” agreement with the right-wing Japan Innovation Party (Nippon Ishin no Kai). But centrist forces have, globally speaking, rarely been the bulwarks that they often claim to be. Often, they are even active participants in the mainstreaming of the very kinds of ideas that undermine their legitimacy.
Japan is no different. Take for instance Tamaki Yūichirō, representative for Kanagawa’s 2nd district and current leader of the Democratic Party for the People (DPP). A former-bureaucrat and committed centrist, Tamaki has never been a particularly inspiring political figure. He has nevertheless been one of Japan’s most resilient politicians, surviving the disintegration of the Democratic Party to become leader of his own party. In the years since, he has developed a stable following in no small part due to his YouTube channel, where he explains the nitty-gritty details of various policies and current events by using a whiteboard. It was not until recently, however, that he began to finally thrive; in last year’s election, his party pulled off a surprisingly solid result (from 7 to 28 seats). Now, he is one of the most talked-about politicians in Japan, and for a brief moment, was seen as a possible pick for prime minister.
Tamaki’s success comes at the same time that anti-establishment politicians and parties are gaining a foothold in Japanese politics. Since 2020, conspiracy theories around the pandemic and vaccines have led to social and political mobilization, as well as the emergence of an explicitly conspiracist party, Sanseitō. Few would have considered Tamaki to be a part of that movement before this last general election, but considering how much he invested in social media and content platforms, it makes sense that similar sets of incentives are at work here. As a result, it is becoming harder to keep him separated from these trends. In particular, Tamaki’s messaging on the raising the nontaxable income threshold from 1,030,000 yen to 1,780,000 put fuel on the fire by triggering a surprise avalanche of conspiracy discourse and protests aimed at the Ministry of Finance (MoF).
Tamaki was following the standard playbook for a challenger seeking to gain attention in a crowded political marketplace: put forward a single, universal flagship policy, something that is directly implementable, does not depend on difficult debates about redistribution, and will have quick and clear consequences for voters. The policy also likely meshed with his own expressed preferences regarding fiscal spending and the budget deficit. In that sense, it was essentially a technocratic fix, but it nevertheless grabbed the attention of voters because it symbolized popular beliefs about the ills of Japan’s economy. The government had spent the past few decades persuading its citizens that it needed to levy a consumption tax to keep up its social welfare spending. As wages stagnated and living costs increased, the Japanese state recorded an excess in tax revenue in 2024, a point that Tamaki continually pushed on his (very popular) YouTube channel.
Of more significance was perhaps the messaging after the election. Tamaki received word of government efforts to produce a counter-narrative against his policy. He lashed out against this as “kōsaku” (工作), a term for political maneuvering but which is also used by conspiracy theorists for anything from propaganda to full-on disinformation campaigns. The MoF has indeed been at the center of legitimate criticisms for decades, though it is becoming harder and harder to distinguish critique from conspiracy. Many saw it, therefore, as the oppressive machine (rendered sometimes as the “Deep State”) bringing down the hammer against the will of the people, leading, in turn, to the “Abolish the MoF” demonstrations.
But that still raises the question of how someone that is essentially a technocrat in style and substance could (even if briefly) become the posterboy of a populist movement to “drain the swamp.” The effect of social media here cannot be discounted. The beleaguered politician has turned to X and YouTube for his survival and has clearly learned to respond to their various cues. This, in turn, drives him further and further into adopting the logic of their algorithms. Using conspiratorial language is an entirely rational way to generate more engagement at a time when he needed it to pursue his political goals. We can also call this “audience capture,” a situation where social media influencers and content creators continuously respond to feedback for fear of losing the attention of their audiences. The situation was so severe that the labor union, Rengo, arguably DPP’s most important ally, openly expressed frustration with the effect that social media was having on Tamaki.
Tamaki is amplifying ideas and voices that do not seem to fit his instincts as a career politician who cares about bread-and-butter issues.
There are very good reasons to want to keep hold of a loyal audience showering you with praise. That became particularly clear as the story of his having an extramarital affair broke out shortly after the election. As a man of significant privilege, a public scandal of this kind was always going to be cushioned. After he was suspended from the party leadership for three months as a disciplinary measure, he went through the rounds on radio shows and alternative media channels to promote his party’s policies. One commentator on a popular conservative podcast opined that this was a sort of blessing in disguise, seeing as it freed up Tamaki to push forward his agenda in the realm of public debate. That is the sort of thing that can matter. There is hardly a better way to keep your career alive than to sidle up to those who will push back against any “mainstream media narrative” seeking to cancel you.
But, in doing so, Tamaki is also amplifying ideas and voices that do not seem to fit his instincts as a career politician who cares about bread-and-butter issues. The problem is that, to the extent that he feels genuinely motivated to achieve meaningful change as a minor party, he will naturally seek out useful allies and tools. Some of those have proven to be welcoming; they are, however, also entirely ungovernable.
All in all, Tamaki is not necessarily the problem here. There is a much more important conversation that we need to have about the role of algorithmic technologies and platforms in democratic life. What Tamaki represents in this moment, however, is an establishment that is hastening the decline of its already diminishing legitimacy while the far right swoops in to fill the void. And so, we should not just be asking if the center can hold, but also why it so often seems like it does not even want to anymore.
Romeo Marcantuoni is a PhD candidate at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies at Waseda University and Adjunct Lecturer of Political Science at Temple University Japan Campus. He earned his MA and BA in Japanese Studies at KU Leuven, Belgium. His current research focuses on interpretive approaches to the study of political parties from the perspective of emotions and narrative.
