Originally published on April 21, 2019.
This essay depicts how Asahi Shimbun promoted anti-nuclear power, anti-constitutional revision, and fear of escaping deflation in its editorials, while television figures such as Akihiro Ōtani, Mino Monta, and Ichirō Furutachi repeated those lines all day long, believing they could once again manufacture anti-Abe public opinion.
Through the miscalculations of Yukiko Kada, Ichirō Ozawa, and Asahi Shimbun, and the crushing defeat in the general election, it sharply exposes the limits and collapse of media-driven politics rooted in the postwar regime.

2019-04-21
Idiots such as Akihiro Ōtani and Mino Monta kept shouting day and night in exact accordance with Asahi’s editorials, crying that nuclear power must be abandoned and that the LDP was ready to seize a metal bat, while Ichirō Furutachi, in a voice like that of a funeral master of ceremonies, kept saying that Yukiko Kada, with her post-nuclear stance, was the right choice.

What follows continues from the previous chapter.
Things had become so terrible that a general election was called in the twelfth month, yet even then Wakamiya seems to have believed that television politics still retained its magical power.
That was why, on the very day of the general election, December 16 of last year, Asahi’s front-page headline read, “Will the government change, or survive?”
They still believed, by more than half, that the Democratic Party government could survive.

For Asahi, in its editorials, called for abandoning nuclear power, denounced the LDP for advocating constitutional revision, and stirred up fear by portraying escape from deflation as a dangerous gamble.
Idiots such as Akihiro Ōtani and Mino Monta kept shouting day and night in exact accordance with Asahi’s editorials, crying that nuclear power must be abandoned and that the LDP was ready to seize a metal bat, while Ichirō Furutachi kept repeating, in a voice like that of a funeral master of ceremonies, that Yukiko Kada, with her post-nuclear stance, was the right choice.

Everything was exactly the same as the lineup that had brought down the previous Abe administration.
With this, there was no reason why the foolish masses would not move in an anti-Abe direction.

Even if the Democratic Party lost some seats, it would still win more than one hundred.
Ichirō Ozawa told Yukiko Kada, “If you stand, one hundred seats are certain.”
Asahi read the situation the same way.
Even if the LDP gained somewhat, the Democratic Party government could survive by drawing in a swarm of vulgar minor parties.

That was why the headline appeared as it did, yet the result was a crushing defeat.
Most shocking of all was the defeat of Kada, who, in perfect fidelity to the postwar regime, had spoken of upholding Article 9 of the Constitution, abandoning nuclear power, and rescuing the weak.
To be continued.