fickle?

voters weigh in

It's Monday, so it's time for another round of political updates. The natives in three places are showing restlessness, with consequences as yet far from clear.

Two countries where voters registered their opinions at the ballot box over the past two years, seeking dramatic change, are now experiencing buyer's remorse.

Japan, while not prone to earth-shaking change, is also moving substantially to the most conservative side of the political spectrum, at least a partial explanation for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba abandoning his feeble attempt to craft an enduring coalition a year after he stepped into one of the all-too-frequent leadership voids in the Liberal Democratic Party.

How many more government leaders will find it impossible to pursue either "politics as usual" or dramatic reform? Regardless of what they said a while back, voters verge on being unhappy campers everywhere.

Dictators in the Kremlin, Pyongyang, and Zhongnanhai make only the most sickly efforts to give their citizens a voice in governance, so they are not finding the current situation much different. The irony, however, of the Russian and Chinese septuagenarians speaking on a "hot mike" last week about organ transplants to prolong the harsh treatment they mete out in their countries is almost too much to bear. Still, nothing appears poised on the horizon as a direct threat to their policies (or themselves), but humans have a fascinating history, meaning "never say never" is risky.

As I mentioned only a fortnight ago, the unthinkable threat to Britain's de facto two main party political parties, which guarantee either Labour (incumbents) or Conservative prime ministers, is growing as Nigel Farage's nationalist, anti-immigrant Reform movement increasingly seems to be on the march. Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour victory in 2024 provided a massive cushion for his party's determination to correct the voters' frustration with a generation of Tory rule and the antics of some of its leaders (erstwhile Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, for starters). Starmer, a knighted human rights barrister, promised to reverse the decline in standard of living, end industrial actions plaguing the final two years of Conservative rule, address the profound frustration with a failing health care and immigration system, and so much more.

Starmer and his Labourites had to recognize Farage's growing popularity among the disillusioned members of society. The Reform Party not only received 14% of the popular vote to earn five seats, but it also showed itself to be a far greater threat to the two largest parties than the third-place Liberal Democrats, because the Reform had momentum. Reform's central thesis of immigration destroying the country contributed to the 2016 Brexit vote. Still, Farage's movement was appealing to an ever greater number who saw no difference between the traditional ruling parties, which sacrificed Britain's future for their own callous, selfish interests (even though Labour's manifesto for the country's future was distinctly different from that of the Conservatives).

Fourteen months into office, Starmer's party faces so much of the same public anger that a string of inept Tory leaders did over the past decade. Industrial actions returned to the front pages of newspapers as MDs, nurses, educators, and transportation workers threatened disruptions for better salaries and better services.

The blockbuster news that close Starmer ally and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner had underpaid taxes on a property valued at £800,000 (well over $1 million U.S.) forced her resignation last week. A vital portion of the story, however, was the message that Labour, the workers' party over the past hundred and forty years, had a deputy spending that kind of money on a home, shorting her tax filings, and trying to argue it was a misunderstanding as millions of Britons struggle to pay their taxes on far less lucrative properties, see waiting times of months to see a health care provider. A long line of other day-to-day concerns, Labour seemed poised to address more effectively and humanely than would the Conservatives.

Instead, Rayner's story provided further evidence that politicians make rules which they then ignore, a casualty of the arrogance of power. Reform, with its strident nationalism and mockery of the ineptitude and carelessness of those in government, appears to be a better bet to deliver results than any other party in the eyes of many British citizens. Pledging he would assure British citizens could be proud of their country while not being overwhelmed by immigrants, Farage also vows to reinstitute freedoms of speech stolen by the tired governing parties once in office.

No mind that Reform used the same tactics against opponents in Nottinghamshire earlier this summer, or that the politician acknowledged lying about his purported (then denied) procurement of a house in Clacton, when his partner owns the property, for which Farage could not explain how he missed paying taxes, akin to Rayner's failure. Additionally, the Reform leader received a skewering when he appeared across The Pond last week, as he pushed the U.S. Congress to reject Westminster's actions against "free speech," since his party is using similar tactics to those he criticizes in dealing with its own critics.

Many British voters love that he is standing up against foreign exploitation and making Britons proud to be British again. As Reform opens its annual party meeting this week, both recent successes in filling seats in what Britain calls "bi-elections" (contests to fill individual seats between general elections) and the defection of a former Tory cabinet member to the cause will provide an ebullient mood for discussions about how Farage would govern as PM, with high expectations he is a credible if not inevitable candidate for that lofty role.

Shigeru Ishiba attempted to consolidate power as Japanese Prime Minister for a year. Still, he also confronted deeply disillusioned voters and a rising tide of hard-right nationalism before tendering his resignation in Tokyo yesterday. Overall economic dissatisfaction is nested among anxieties about Japan's security and favorable tariff resolution, all of which bedeviled efforts to solidify support within his Liberal Democratic Party. Ishiba's humiliation, evidenced by his loss of 19 of 66 contested seats in the Diet two months ago, reflected significant dissatisfaction with the man heading the party that has governed Japan for 70 of the 80 years following World War II.

As in Britain, Japan's voters increasingly turn to a far-right nationalist, albeit one without much concern for immigration, since that phenomenon rarely occurs in Northeast Asia. Yet immigration may become relevant as the country's shrinking and aging population cannot replace itself, precluding Japan's ability to maintain the economic prosperity of the past sixty years. While several candidates within the LDP vie to succeed Ishiba, it is Sohei Kamiya, the founder of Sanseitō, who fascinates many due to his advocacy for "Japan First" policies, which draw attention to foreigners perceived as a threat to the nation, whether through tourism or immigration. Sanseitō won only a handful of seats in July's polling, where Ishiba's party failed miserably. However, this accomplishment, achieved only four years after founding the party, is remarkable in a society that changes rather gradually.

The third case worth citing today was the voters chastising Javier Milei for doing what a majority elected him to do in late 2023 in Argentina: dismantle the existing social safety-based state built on the eighty-year-old movement known as Peronismo. Bloomberg Politics described the outcome as Javier Milei "got wiped out yesterday in the most consequential election he's faced since taking office nearly two years ago, losing Argentina's biggest province by 13 percentage points to his Peronist opponents on their home turf."

Elected with a seeming mandate to implement an austerity plan to end decades of reliance on state subsidies, which had engendered teetering economic outcomes, Milei faced evidence that his initial success had stalled months ago. His sister and close advisor, Karina, is under siege for a bribery scandal rocking Buenos Aires. This problem contributes to questions about how different Milei himself really is from the Kirchners he replaced in the Casa Rosada. President Milei uncharacteristically acknowledged defeat while vowing to undergo self-reflection, yet announcing he would proceed with his austerity measures, which are seeing increases in inflation, unemployment, and a decline in the willingness of formerly enthusiastic foreign investors to invest in the country.

Milei most certainly faces former disgraced president Cristina de Kirchner in a presidential vote twenty-five months from now, so he has some time to recoup his losses but must reverse trends. Argentina has suffered under Peronist economic mismanagement since the 1940s, partially because voters prefer not to endure the pain reform engenders. The question will be whether the pain of reform to achieve better long-term, predictable economic growth is something that Argentines are willing to tolerate; we cannot answer that yet.

These are three instances of the wide lens of fickle behavior that voters engage in. That is the voter's right in a participatory system, albeit one that takes each society from the status quo ante towards fascinating consequences. In each of these countries, however, voters can voice their feelings and are still doing so robustly, unlike in China, Russia, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, or other places we can think of.

If naticons protect their interests at the nation-state level, should any politician be surprised that voters protect what they perceive as personal interests equally vigorously? The British traditional parties, the LDP Prime Minister, and the Argentine libertarian president all took actions that led to consequences they likely rue today. That does not mean that the voters are wrong or that politics will veer forward without some adjustments in any of these three instances. However, it does indicate that the electorate in a participatory system matters greatly. That participation requires two-way communication rather than one side always on transmit while the other is on receive. Actions do create consequences, after all.

I welcome your thoughts on this topic, these countries, the elections cited, or any other topic. One of the subscribers to this newsletter sent me a detailed and passionate response to Friday's column, which led me to ponder these subjects extensively all weekend. Please consider doing the same for all of us to take your analysis into consideration.Thank you to Jim and the subscribers who provide me resources to pursue some of the materials I used today alone. $55 per year or $8 monthly expands what I read to foreign as well as domestic analyses and news outlets to accrue as many views as possible.

An Eastern bumblebee registers her thoughts on my plants on the patio—all views are welcome, after all.

Be well and be safe. FIN

Katrina Bishop, Jenni Reid, Sophie Kiderlin, Matt Clinch, Ruxandra Iordache, and April Roach, “Labour Party Wins UK Election in a Landslide”, CNBC.com, 4 July 2024, retrieved at https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/04/uk-election-2024-result-keir-starmers-labour-to-beat-conservatives.html

Patrick Gillespie, “Milei’s Surge Checked in Argentine Ballot Blow“, Bloombereg.com, 8 September 2025, retrieved at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-09-08/milei-s-surge-checked-in-argentine-ballot-blow?cmpid=BBD090825_politics&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=250908&utm_campaign=bop

Javier C. Hernández, “What to Know about the Japanese Prime Minister’s Resignation”, NewYorkTimes.com, 8 September 2025, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/world/asia/japan-prime-minister-shigeru-ishiba-resigns.html

Shiaami Khalil and Kelly Ng, “The Rise of the far-right ‘Japan First’ party”, BBC.com, 21 July 2025, retrieved at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly80nnjnv5o

David Maddox, “Reform media ban in Nottinghamshire is a disturbing glimpse of a future with Farage in power”, TheIndependent.co.uk, 3 September 2025, retrieved at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-media-ban-nottinghamshire-live-farage-free-speech-b2817293.html

Archie Mitchell, “Nigel Farage admits he was wrong to say he had bought a house in Clacton“, TheIndependent.co.uk, 8 September 2025, retrieved at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-house-clacton-partner-reform-b2822093.html

AFP, “Nigel Farage’s hard right Reform scent victory at annual meet”, https://www.france24.com, 5 September 2025, retrieved at https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250905-farage-grabs-momentum-convenes-hard-right-reform-uk-party

Cynthia Watson, “‘shock therapy’ in a country of bounty”, CynthiaWatson.substack.com, 8 March 2024.

—,“Why not cry for Argentina?”, Cynthiawatson.substack.com, 26 October 2023