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U.S. and Japan elections: scary in their own ways

American political campaigns can be frighteningly tribal while fear of the foreign permeates polls here

Reality is more frightening: An employee holds up masks depicting U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, at a shop in Los Angeles on Wednesday. | REUTERS

By Debito Arudou
Special To The Japan Times

Oct 30, 2016

Happy Halloween. Let's talk about something really scary: elections in the United States and Japan.

I say scary because these countries are the No. 1 and No. 3 largest economies in the world, not to mention representative democracies considered too big to fail. Yet the way things are going is truly frightening.

Let's start with election campaigns in the U.S., since they are probably very familiar and fresh to readers:

U.S. and Japan elections: scary in their own ways

American political campaigns can be frighteningly tribal while fear of the foreign permeates polls here

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