How Donald Trump-inspired politician is turning the country’s politics on its head

Daniel Hardaker

Daniel Hardaker

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Japan, Japan emperor, Asia

20 July 2025 9:54pm BST

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Sohei Kamiya's rise in popularity in the Japanese elections is sharing the country's politics

Sohei Kamiya’s rise in popularity in the Japanese elections is sharing the country’s politics Credit: Ko Sasaki/The New York Times

Sohei Kamiya’s first foray into politics was brief and unremarkable.

After serving for five years as a city councillor in Suita, the former supermarket manager ran unsuccessfully as a candidate for the Liberal Democrats in the 2012 national elections.

With his hopes of a seat in parliament quashed, he became a YouTuber. Little did he know his videos would soon help turn Japanese politics on its head.

Channel Grand Strategy, as he named the project, initially broadcast discussions on niche historical topics such as Korea’s 1884 Kapsin coup and the Seven Years’ War’s impact on Japan.

Over the next eight years, viewers increased along with the channel’s production values.

Topics began to include exhortations for the Japanese people to “be more proud” and tips on how office workers can conduct “high-intensity muscle training” at their desks.

He would go on to compare himself to Donald Trump and mostly focus his ire on “globalism” and the rapidly increasing numbers of foreigners in Japan.

The political party he formed was projected on Sunday to win more than a dozen seats in parliament to help finally break the stranglehold of the mainstream centrist Liberal Democratic Party on Japanese politics.

But his rise has not come without controversy.

In 2022, Mr Kamiya won a seat in the upper house of parliament after promising not to sell out Japan to “Jewish capital” during a campaign speech.

He has also backed Vladimir Putin in the war in Ukraine, and has had to fend off allegations of collaborating with Moscow after one of the party’s candidates gave an interview to Russian state media in the run-up to Sunday’s elections.

Emperor Naruhito

Japan’s current emperor is Naruhito, who ascended to the throne in 2019 following the abdication of his father, Emperor Akihito Credit: Getty Images

Mr Kamiya’s Sanseito party has also drafted a new Japanese constitution, which would restore some of the emperor’s political powers.

The emperor would be given a one-time veto over acts such as the appointment of a prime minister and the approval of laws.

This would, in effect, mean that the emperor would be able to reject a proposal made by the cabinet; however, if the same proposal was submitted again, he would have to approve it.

Japan’s current constitution does not allow the emperor even nominal powers, with executive power formally invested in the cabinet.

Emperor Naruhito, seen here with his wife and King Charles and Queen Camilla,

Emperor Naruhito, seen here with his wife and King Charles and Queen Camilla, does not even have nominal powers Credit: Getty Images/Kirsty Wigglesworth

In his YouTube videos, Mr Kamiya, a former military reservist, interviewed Japanese Self-Defence Force officers and hosted talks on the importance of strength and soldierly values.

By 2020, the channel had become popular in Right-wing circles, which the boyish then-43-year-old was able to use as a launchpad for a return to electoral politics.

In April that year, with a coterie of other nationalist rising stars on social media, he launched the Sanseito party and broke into mainstream politics, using an innovative digital marketing strategy to rapidly grow its membership and accrue donations.

Sanseito membership fees are high, charging for a month for its basic tier what mainstream parties charge a year.

But members get concrete benefits such as access to chat groups and event invites. Higher-tier subscribers are able to vote on internal elections and policy proposals. By February 2024, the party claimed to have 75,000 paying members.

Japan's ruling coalition lost its majority in the upper house, according to exit polls

Japan’s ruling coalition lost its majority in the upper house, according to exit polls Credit: Toru Hanai/Bloomberg

Sanseito, which bills itself as a “do it yourself” party, spent its early years pushing conspiracy talking points such as vaccine scepticism and the idea that US occupation forces after World War II introduced wheat to Japan as a bio-weapon to weaken the natives’ digestion systems.

According to Japanese media, Mr Kamiya’s early life was unstoried, with him said to have been popular at school and a keen baseball player.

A classmate said: “He reminds me of the brilliant young man you find in every school. At this time, there was not even a trace of a conspiracy theorist in him.”

While studying English for a brief period in Canada during his early adulthood, Mr Kamiya said he “began to question the way I had learned to live my life up until then”.

“I began to truly feel glad to have been born Japanese.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5752957&forum_id=2/#49118626)