[flocial]

He is the longest serving Prime Minister in the history of Japan just shy of 8 years. Before COVID-19 he was under constant attack for a school funding scandal, manipulating a cherry blossom party guest list hosted by the government, and his mishandling of COVID-19. He never got to revise the Japanese Constitution to reinstate a standing military force and all his economic gains were cancelled by COVID-19. I don't know how history will judge Abe but he did better than most.

[claudeganon]

I wish I understood the origin of all the pro-Abe PR narratives in the US. In Japan, he’s immensely unpopular and emblematic of the country’s corrupt, one-party democracy.

His supposed “revitalization” of the Japanese economy has done little more than further impoverish average people, so he can hand out tax benefits to the wealthy and his cronies. He’s dismantled press freedom in a way that other politicians on the far right only dream of, having fired or demoted several prominent journalists who voiced (by Western standards) mild criticism of him.

[bonchicbongenre]

The origin seems pretty obvious to me — Abe is part of the old guard, a plutocrat and moral conservative, like his propagandist supporters in the US media. Doesn't take any squinting to see their interests align