It’s a common issue everywhere, this is possible in many countries now because of the shift in demographic balance where elderly make a bigger voter bloc compared to rest. Whereby governments use pensions and benefits for the elderly as a source of easy votes while using policies that constantly undermine young populations with living cost concerns then foreigners make an easy target and at the same time something to associate their discontentment towards governments and economic situation. In a way these governments make immigrants partners in crime to their adherence to status quo that keeps getting more and more unsustainable when immigrants are often preferred because it is easier to exploit them with lower wages and basically no working rights while at the same time pretending they can’t do anything about it because of international laws or “because of the woke” or something like that.
Obviously, these populist rightwing parties aren’t a solution to anything at all. They are not going to improve living conditions of anyone but unfortunately the indifference and even disdain the ruling governments have towards the suffering of youth makes them easy prey to populism when they give them such an easily identifiable target to focus their angst towards. In other places where the situation is different that angst will be towards the incumbent governments especially if their governance has been long as it has been in many places.
Japan in particular is wildly xenophobic to begin with and it hasn’t offered a future to youth for decades, it had the advantage of being generally affordable especially in terms of housing for decades despite the stagnation but even that is no longer true as in general living standards in Tokyo started to fall behind Western cities in terms of salaries and working hours. So honestly I actually think the rightwing populism will only gain more traction if it remains in opposition because it can keep pointing fingers while the government won’t address anything real and it will never be enough.
I mean Japan is 97% Japanese and main immigrant groups are nearby nations, will problems of Japan be solved if 750k Chinese and 500k Koreans living there are removed? Yet there has been a lot of far right rabble rousing about 3000 Kurds living in Saitama, a population that’s basically otherwise irrelevant in a city like Tokyo. It is all agitation and angst and no resolution at all and it is not going to get better for them economically in their current configuration which exists between serving status quo and catering primarily to pensioners.