00:00:01 John Daub: So here we are in Tokyo. The Shinkansen just passed by there and it's dominating the news here. Politics. It's hard to escape here in Japan at the moment because Japanese politics is really uncharted waters. I was reading on LinkedIn a post from an American business leader that's been working in Japan for a very long time. That business leader had said that over her career in Japan, by the time you get to the meeting, everything's already been decided. And in this case, we've had the meeting. Everything should have been decided before they even go into the vote. But this is a weird time where Japan is unsettled in its direction before getting to the public image of all of this. And it's created something of chaos, which is extraordinarily interesting. Now I've gotten attacked in the comment section from a lot of people. It's totally fine and I'm used to it. I have not come down on any side of this.

00:01:07 John Daub: I first came out on this when the LDP nominated a leader, which is Takaichi Sanae. And she would be the first female Prime Minister of Japan. To me, that doesn't really matter. And I explained that in pretty good detail. But usually the leader of the LDP ends up becoming the Prime Minister because it's a majority party, but that's not the case this time and there's been a lot of debate on whether or not she would be the best leader. I really can't say whether that is because of her gender or not but I doubt it. I do think that she's qualified to do the job and that's what the first episode was about. The second one threw a wrench into it just to explain to people that she's the leader of the LDP and that she's the prime minister not elect. They have an election within the house that will decide who will become the prime minister. Usually it's put together with just the LDP because they have a majority but this time the LDP does not have a majority. They need 233 votes and they don't have that so in this election they need to have a coalition. Everything fell apart when the Komeito party—which is primarily a Buddhist party—left.

00:02:32 John Daub: I think it's really fascinating because when you understand how Japanese politics works you learn a lot about how the country of Japan works. I love having the Shinkansen go right through my head here. This image right here came about 16 hours ago where Takaichi-san courts opposition as a race for the Diet votes intensifies, which is uncharted waters. Using the leader is very easy to pick. Ishiba was something of a compromise I think in many respects but Prime Minister Ishiba was very much a compromise and she was very much a dissident because the former prime minister before that Kishida-san had a lot of scandals with funding with money and that's always a bad scandal and that really hurt the LDP's credibility with voters and they lost a lot of seats in the last election. Ishiba wasn't able to get those people to vote for him. He wasn't able to repair the LDP's image so now here we are with Takaichi-san and that same history of a very corrupt LDP based on that scandal from Kishida-san and there were scandals during Abe's term but if you are in power there's always going to be a scandal. It seems like every prime minister has some sort of scandal and I bet you every single party although they're not in power has some sort of scandal that just never gets mentioned in the news. So it's hard to say that no party is beyond corruption here in Japan but all politics, all power positions, it seems it's very hard not to be touched by corruption. That's just the way the lobbying works here. That's just the way you have to be on top of every single yen that comes into the government. You have to have the right people to make sure that there is no corruption. It's such a really hard task so I don't think though that there's a lot of leeway with that kind of stuff with the Japanese people especially now because everybody's hurting.

00:04:34 John Daub: I want to show you the comments here first, but I want to talk about the news developments. I do think that Takaichi-san is still going to win. Before I get to this, I get so many people that came to me on messages, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, which I don't check that often, and the comment section right here telling me that Takaichi-san is not going to win. Then one person writing, I have it on good authority that Takaichi-san cannot win. I said everybody is an insider until they're not. I don't think anybody really knows what the heck is going on. I don't think the insiders even know. So everybody who's telling you who the next prime minister is, they just don't know. And the whole reason I talk about this politics here is I have no skin in the game. I can't vote. I just want what's best for the Japanese people on the issues that are most pressing to them, which is the cost of living, safety with the neighbors, North Korea and China in particular, are two big issues that are weighing on the Japanese people, but it's mostly inflation and the cost of living and the cost of everything going up. On a lesser extent, immigration is not even in the top 10. Maybe tourism is, but immigration is something that's a very fringe topic here. It's not even in the top 10. And I think that there's going to be immigration reform no matter who is in government this time around. It's just going to happen because Japan is, regardless of who's in there, a conservative country more so than the West. So for Westerners, it's very hard, unless you live here, to wrap your head around Japanese politics, not understanding how the culture works. And even me and my 27 years living here, I'm just scratching the surface.

00:06:36 John Daub: Everybody is also fixated on the Sanseitō party. They've gained some seats in the last election, but they're still very much fringe and they don't hold much power here. And perhaps the votes go to Takaichi-san. I'm not really sure. I think that they don't think she's conservative enough. And I've seen some foreign-based people on X that know politics a lot better than I do, but are somewhat biased in their opinions of Takaichi-san. I think that also you have to take everything with a grain of salt. All I'm saying is that she has the experience to be able to become a prime minister of Japan, in my opinion, based on all the things that she's done. And she has a lot of passion and energy. And I think that that is one of the most important things that's needed. And all this stuff that people talked about before, once they get into power, when you sit down in that prime minister seat... the president of the United States has much more power than a prime minister of Japan. In the sense that the president of the US is an executive branch of the government and can make executive decisions. Japanese prime ministers, I don't believe, can make executive decisions. They need to work with the parliament, but they have a lot of power to push things in a direction.

00:08:03 John Daub: Whoever becomes the next prime minister, just have to hope that they do what's best for the people of Japan. I'm so much on that side of things. And if you stick around for the next few minutes after I finish explaining this, I'll talk to you a little bit more about where I stand politically, because I think some of you might care about that, but it's not what you think. And yeah, I am talking a little bit about it, but in a good way, I think. I'll always try my best to stay in the center of things. And you know what? Staying in the center of things in today's world, I think might be the worst position for, because you can't make everybody happy all of the time.

00:08:54 John Daub: All right, now I can go into this article a little bit more. So this is why I think that perhaps Takaichi-san is going to win and why all the people have been wrong for the last couple of days, predicting Takaichi-san's downfall. And there've been a lot of people doing that. The ruling LDP party's agreement Wednesday with the majority opposition, Japan Innovation Party (JIP, Japan Ishin no Kai) to begin policy talks. This is the Komeito left and the JIP came in. At least that's what it looks like right now on forming a coalition government comes as the Komeito party has left the longstanding LDP-led alliance. The JIP has more members than the Komeito party too. Komeito's withdrawal removed an obstacle between the LDP and the Osaka-based JIP established in the 2010s. Not too long ago. It's a new party in the Kansai region encompassing Osaka and Kyoto. Komeito's strong grassroots network has long competed with JIP's local growing influence. With the Komeito out of the coalition, LDP lawmakers now see a clear path to building a new partnership with the JIP. Paving the way for Sanae Takaichi who was elected leader of the ruling party on October 4th. The LDP still has the most members in the Diet to become Japan's first female prime minister. Many lawmakers of the JIP lean conservative, sharing ideological affinity with Takaichi, one of the LDP's most right-leaning figures. A senior LDP member said that accepting JIP's policy demands could lead us to its backing.

00:10:29 John Daub: And this is pretty good because this means that Takaichi-san might be quite conservative but the JIP is much more centrist than where she is. And these kinds of coalitions help to stabilize any kind of extreme from being in the government. At least most of the time. And in this case for sure. Late last week, Komeito, which had criticized the ruling party's handling of the slush fund scandal and rightfully so, decided to end its coalition with the LDP breaking up a 26-year alliance. It's only been 26 years, which is not very long. I've been here before that existed. Komeito. Japan's largest lay Buddhist organization, Soka Gakkai, also endorsed the LDP candidates in most of the 289 single-seat constituencies in the House of Representatives. And they do have a lot of synergy. But the relationship between the conservative Takaichi and Komeito, which is a Buddhist organization and one based on peace, which I guess has something of a contradiction there, especially with the tensions with the neighbors, which refers to itself as a peace party, has long been considered uneasy due to the differing ideological stances on national security, which has changed over the last decade. On Wednesday, Takaichi met with JIP chief Hirofumi Yoshimura, who you all know as the governor of Osaka because he's been in the news quite a bit. Yoshimura quoted her as saying, let's work together to move Japan forward. Adding she asked for the JIP's cooperation as prime minister vote of the Diet. Now that the Komeito is gone, it seems more likely. Yoshimura also serves as Osaka's governor, and he agreed with Takaichi to start policy talks on forming a coalition. He said, I was convinced by your passion, indicating the JIP may vote for her in prime minister election if negotiations go well.

00:12:07 John Daub: Behind the reproach lies the role of foreign minister Koizumi-san, the son of Junichiro Koizumi, who was second in the race and a little bit more centrist than Takaichi-san and more palatable for a lot more people. Koizumi's reformist image and Yoshimura's pragmatic regionalism resonated with each other behind the scenes. I like that partnership. They're two young guys. He's a pretty popular guy. He's the one who was the face of the Expo besides the mutant mascot, Myaku-myaku. The Expo ended just a few days ago. I guess they made a profit, so you can call it a success. But he's done a lot of stuff with Osaka. It's not an easy place to make changes in Osaka. And he's been able to do some good stuff with the Japan Innovation Party. And they've got more members than Komeito, but you know what? Takaichi-san is still short. And all the insiders in the world don't know how this is gonna play out. But all it takes is for Takaichi-san to show that she can work with other people, that she's not this super far right, and maybe she is. But when you sit in that leadership chair, you can't be that same person. You have to find compromises.

00:13:41 John Daub: There was this really interesting comment here. I love the comments you guys do. Even, I don't have to agree with it. Some might make the argument that needing a coalition is how democracy is supposed to work. That a single group with singular interests shouldn't be making decisions for everybody. A leader not being in a strong position is a good thing. In a free country, a strong leader, well, yes and no, but yes. I see nothing wrong with this comment. And in the end, at the end of the day, Japan is Japan and they have to decide for themselves how to run it. That's it. But fundamentally, if the value of democracy, and I'm not saying they have to, that is their choice, right? Then the underlying principles are uniquely Japanese. They're universal to the concept in general. So it's such a great comment and it's so true. I think that the government now, the LDP, has to listen. This is a great thing.

00:14:44 John Daub: I've been reading on X a lot of people that just have it in for Takaichi-san. And I get that. They have it in for her. But look, if it's not her, then who? If it wasn't Prime Minister Abe after the other party was in power, then who? Who is the actual? Is there anybody who could actually become a really strong prime minister for Japan right now? Who would be the option? Who is it? Because you can demonize the other party, you can demonize the other person, but who is actually going to be a better person to step into that role? I think having Prime Minister Abe in there for like nine years was a stabilizing force. And I did not agree with him on many things. I agreed with him on many things, and I didn't agree with him on many things, too. But he was a stabilizing figure. And I don't know if there was, after the weak leadership that we had going through the Great Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, a lot of people criticizing inexperience. Prime Minister Abe came in at a time that stabilized the country, and whether you agreed with him or not, and a lot of people didn't. He was a very stabilizing figure. And I think Japan probably did more in that time than if there was another leadership change every year. There's almost like a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of a situation. But he led the country in a clear direction. Whether you agree with that direction, it was a stabilizing force to help the economy, to help things, then the pandemic came, and then everything fell apart. But it's a really tough time when a leader changes a year later. Ishiba, I think he lasted just a little bit over a year. And I'm not gonna say whether he was successful or not successful. I think he was somebody who tried to unify the government, and I think that's a good thing. But for me, my skin in the game is that I only want what's best for Japan. I'm rooting for whoever becomes the prime minister, because I don't have a vote. My wife does for her area, but nobody of the people here that are walking around vote for the prime minister. They vote for the party.

00:17:13 John Daub: I get Tamaki and Takaichi mixed up here, because in Romaji, they look so similar. These people didn't vote for Takaichi, they didn't vote for Tamaki either. A lot of people didn't vote for either of these people. It's up to the leaders to make that call. It's not the same thing as in the United States. So with that, we all kind of rely on the wisdom of our leaders, so the leaders have to be very good. Right? What happens, Japan's economy and the way of life of people living here in Japan won't change. The price of everything keeps going up, rising. Plus the yen is at its lowest. Japan needs a better plan ASAP. That's all that I want. That's all that the people here want. They also understand that, and the news has been reporting this more and more, that Tamaki-san, the other side of the conservatives, there's two sides of it. And I'm not saying one side is wrong or not. I don't really care. Tamaki-san is more of a globalist, a Davos kind of a person. You think in like Canada, UK, kind of like France, that kind of a direction. A lot of people are talking about that's the direction that Japan would go if Tamaki-san becomes the prime minister. I don't know if that's what the Japanese people want either. So I don't think that Japanese people want to go on a far right, Japan only type of way, either. I think the answer lies perhaps somewhere in between, just like it always does. But the coalition government here is probably a good thing in the sense that now, somebody who, and Takaichi-san, who has a lot of experience, will have to find a way to work with the JIP, the Japan Innovation Party, and the other people that she's gonna need to get the 233 votes. And that's a good thing. Isn't it? I think so.

00:19:15 John Daub: And then for this comment, no politics, listen to people. I completely get it. But Japanese culture, and this is the stuff we talk about on this channel, is deeply rooted in so many things. And the politics after World War II, in fact, I could even say when the Meiji Restoration came in 1868, where the shogunate left power behind and it was given to the parliamentary process, the government changed to the Meiji government, I think that that is a, that all history boils up through the politics that we have today in many ways. And for me, it's fascinating to look at it with the most unbiased prism as I possibly can. And I wanna give you my unbiased prism right now, which is one of the hardest things to talk about.

00:20:04 John Daub: Look, in 2017, I made a video going to Obama City, Obama in Fukui Prefecture, and about the connection with President Obama and Obama City. And I got a lot of people on the right saying, why would you focus on this? Where's President Trump? You are so left. Why would you discuss this? Then I might say something that I agree with President Trump and everybody says, oh, you're MAGA, you're this. And I don't even see how that's an insult actually, because I got a lot of friends that are MAGA, Make America Great Again, and I have no problem with them. And I got a lot of friends that are really hardcore Democrats here. I got no problem with them. Most of the time, I don't say anything because I don't really care. So that's where I stand with it. I don't care if you support the president of the United States. And if you don't, that's up to you too. But me, I got a lot of people here that are servicemen and women that watch this show. They're in Iwakuni, they're in Yokosuka, they're all over the country. I have mad affection for all of them. They are here representing the United States and they don't care. Privately, they probably do, but on their chest is the flag of the United States. United States, USA, written on their uniform. If they get deployed to war, it does not matter who is the president of the United States, whether it's a Democrat or Republican. And I very much feel the same way as somebody living here in Japan. I might have some private feelings about it. And I get one vote every four years. And I do that, and it's a private thing on the direction of that country, where we have so many servicemen and women working here.

00:22:27 John Daub: And you can call me MAGA, you can call me left, you can call me right, whatever. It doesn't really impact me, because I know where I stand. And I'm really not swayed to imprint my politics on you. I might talk positively about the United States, but that's where I was born. So you can only assume that I would have pride in the place that I was born. I don't have to agree with it all the time. But publicly, I love my country. I love the servicemen and women that are here that are doing really tough work that might be deployed in war to fight for all of us if it came to, but we need good leaders to make sure that that doesn't happen. And I think we got one in the White House right now. And if President Biden were to come to Japan, and I got invited to come and meet him, I would go and meet him and I would be so honored. And if President Trump came to Japan and I got a chance to meet him, I'd be so honored. I think that's what you need to understand here. I don't really play Democrat or Republican here in Japan because it's irrelevant. I play, I love my country. And I also, I really love India too. And I have a heritage going back to there. And I've been to the embassy and talk with the people there and we have a shared love of India as well. So I think it's very important that you remember when you travel abroad, that the world does not see you as Democrat or Republican, they see you as American. And when you talk bad about your country, you talk bad about yourself, it just makes you look bad. And you can disagree with me on that, but I've been here for a very long time and I'm always gonna stick to this as close and as possible as I can. And who I vote for in the election, is none of your business. And it shouldn't be, because this show is about Japan.

00:24:24 John Daub: And I wanna clear the air on this, because I know that I might say something that makes you feel that, oh, this is the way my politics is. And I'm also very much like every, all of you can switch the way I feel on topics because like these topics, they change over time. But I can tell you this, all of the people here, or at least the majority of the Japanese are way more conservative than they are in the West. All right? The LDP, which is the Liberal Democratic Party, which you would think would be liberal or democratic, is conservative. It makes no sense. And that's the great thing about Japan. And maybe the thing I wanna end on here, Japan is for Japanese. It's not a globalist thing. Now, I think it makes a lot of sense to try to find ways to work better with the world, but Japan has to stay the way it is. That is a sentiment. And that's why perhaps Takaichi-san won over Koizumi for the LDP leadership race. I don't know. I think it was quite close. I'm a fan of Koizumi. I'm a fan of all of these people. They're doing their best. They love their country. They wanna do the best that they can. But I'm not a fan of the globalist way of doing things for Japan because that's not really what the people here want right now. They kinda want right now, but for a very long time, especially with the tourism that's coming in, they feel left out. There's a feeling of this, and it has nothing to do with immigration. It has everything to do with the fact that the yen is quite weak. They can't travel anywhere abroad. And now, domestically, they are competing with a lot of foreign tourists. Tourists, not residents. Well, maybe some residents. And it's quite crowded out there. Shinkansens are more crowded. The population is declining, but it's still harder to get a hotel reservation at a hot spring resort, which should be easier for a lot of people. People are working hard here in Japan but the money's not going as far as it used to. Company bonuses are way down. A lot of people hurting and this is a global thing but there's going to be a different solution for this for every single country. France is having a struggle to find a way to come up with a solution there. United States they decided on a direction you might disagree with it. For me even if I disagreed with it it doesn't matter because I live here in Japan.

00:27:17 John Daub: To reiterate if any U.S. president were to come here with the love of my country in my heart I would shake their hand and say welcome to Japan do you want a list of the top five things to eat here because I can do that for you and you know and you all know that I would do that too so I hope that that helps some of you to understand where I'm coming from. I'll take some questions here. I also live in Japan uh the LDP election of Takaichi is a result of the council election I'm not saying that there was not a move to the right in the recent council election but it can be exaggerated the Japan Communist Party lost four of its 11 seats bringing it down to seven seats if you look at the entirety of the last election you can see a lot of shifts in Japanese culture whereas the far right anti-foreigner party have just two more they only added two seats in the last election it's not something that's really taking off and the one thing that I've noticed is that the media here in Japan and particular maybe non-Japanese that are talking about Japan they all seem to have some sort of a bias and I get that it's all sort of baked in there but honestly all I have is a love for this country in my heart and if you whoever wins the prime minister. Again, as I said, I'm going to support everything I can do to help them because I want more tourists to go to the countryside. I want more people to see things other than Kyoto. I want more visitors to come to Japan but do so in a responsible way. I think I want the same thing that Japanese want here. I want the good people to come to Japan because I think if you are more informed about Japanese culture, you're more informed about how Japan works. If you're more informed about the Japanese language, if you're more informed about the do's and don'ts of the culture, you're going to fit in here as a tourist a lot better and that's very good and very important for this country. And I very much strongly feel that is my guiding light, not LDP or Komeito, all the party politics. I don't care about that. I just care about the direction and how I can work with whoever is in power. I just want to help the objectives of these wonderful people that are all around me that I've been living with for the last 27 years. I hope that this kind of helps you understand where I'm coming from whenever I talk about politics because it's not in the light that you think it is. Maybe it is, I don't know. It's up to you to decipher because based on your feelings and emotions but I don't think you should be guided by your emotions. You should be guided by a little bit of your emotions. And more from here. Alright?

00:29:56 John Daub: And not enough people play chess these days. I noticed this. I'm teaching my son chess. He's picking it up really fast. I'm teaching my son about American patriotic songs. You know, he's got to learn it somewhere. Like God Bless America and America the Beautiful. These are great songs. These are songs that bring people together. We all sang it in elementary school. Oh Beautiful for spacious skies. It's so ingrained in my mind. I don't think I'll ever be able to forget it. But there was a song called Yankee Doodle Dandy which I think all kids learn it in the United States. And it was taunting of the American rebel, the Revolutionary War back in the day, like 260 years ago. The Redcoats would play the drum to march to the beat. So everyone was in unison and everyone was working together. And they would sing songs, you know, in cadence like this. And Yankee Doodle Dandy was one of the songs that the British, the Redcoats would sing. And the Americans picked up on this at the time. They were just the rebels. And they turned that song into the greatest troll. The US knew how to do it. That didn't impact. You show the other people that the insults don't work. You turn it around on them. And instead of trying to fight against it. You accept the Yankee Doodle moniker. All right, we're Yankees, baby. All right, I guess it was something from the Dutch language where it's like a little boy kind of condescending. But they accepted that word Yankee. They bought into it and they made songs. They turned it. If you know the phrases of Yankee Doodle Dandy, the ones with General Washington and Captain Gooding, they turned it in as a marching song of their own, stealing from the British and making it even better. I love that. That's like the ultimate troll. So that stuff is still relevant today. You can disagree with people. People can call you a name or whatever. Hey, you know what? Sometimes you can accept it, turn it around and make it into one of your greatest strengths. I love that about comedy as well, where we can use comedy and we can turn something that's a serious situation, sometimes funny, depending on the context of it, of course.

00:32:16 John Daub: Maybe something that we lose sight of in the UK these days with people getting arrested at the airport. If that's what the UK people want, then that's what's going to happen. People are going to have to make a decision based on the location that they're at. Everything is regional in the New York mayoral contest. We might have Mamdani winning. How do I feel about that? I don't really. I think that there's a total lack of leaders. Are these the best candidates? First of all, that's the first thing that comes to mind. And second. If the people of New York want to elect Mamdani mayor, do it. And if he does a very bad job, then I don't think there's going to be talk of having somebody who's far left for a very long time. If he does a great job with things that might never have been tried before, then he's going to keep on being in office. So I think that's the other. That's the final thing, I think, with this whole politics.

00:33:24 John Daub: And this is why maybe Tamaki-san, I think the other parties aren't really playing strongly and they could compete against Takaichi-san a little bit stronger, I think. And the reason why they don't is this is not the time. There's a divided government. Japan has a lot of challenges ahead of it. If Takaichi-san cannot guide to a better future, it's going to be really hard for the LDP to have any credibility in the future. This could be the final nail in the coffin, so to speak. It's a phrase. And then Tamaki-san is going to have a heck of a lot more power if Takaichi-san can't be successful. So who really wants to be in control of power right now? Right. Same as New York. Who really wants to be mayor of New York right now? And I love New York City and I hope that they make the best choice possible for them. But they will. That's what the democracy is for. They vote. And if it's somebody that you don't agree with, then so be it. I think that you got to give that person a chance. Because that's what democracy is all about. And you know, and if I had a chance to meet with the mayor of New York and I disagreed with them, I would probably be pretty. I think that might be pretty cool, too. Right. Doesn't matter. It's based on the people. And if they fail, then they don't win for a long time. I don't think that any party in the US has been in power for a very long time. Something always happens. There's always a power shift. And that's a very healthy thing where you've got four years of Democrats, four years or eight years of this party. Eight years of that party. It seems to kind of shift back and forth. American people are very savvy in that sense. And if you compare governments, the bickering that we have is all like on micro stuff in a way. But on the macro side of it, the larger picture, American government is a lot more blessed than they realize.

00:35:19 John Daub: And there was a comment. I don't think I highlighted it, but it was somebody from a country that said, Look, Japan should be very fortunate. Because at least they have some power to pick who the prime minister is in a way because he's in a military where the military picks the leaders. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, you have to remember, there are places that are not very good situations. And yet the people will vote for it. Of course, there's corruption and all this other stuff. But in the end, I live here. I can't vote. I'm just going to support and do the best that I can and work with what I have, which is either going to be Takaichi-san or Tamaki-san or maybe more of Ishiba-san. I don't know. But Ishiba-san has some really good projects and he really wants to push rural Japan more. And I'm all for that. So could work with anybody. It doesn't really matter to me. And it could matter to you. But on a person to person basis, I meet somebody from the US. I'm not seeing you as a Democrat, Republican. I see you as just an American. And you're going to get a big hug from me if especially if you're Hawaiian. Because that's who I am. I don't care. Because that's not what we talk about food. We talk about destinations. But on this channel, we talk about Japanese politics. And sometimes we get a lot of people from the US who might go there. You know, I mean, I know you know, any questions before I want to keep this short here.

00:36:55 John Daub: Any questions before we sign off and here? I think it's a pretty encouraging sign that we do have a stronger idea of who's the leader is going to be. Right now, it's like a horse race. It looked like Tamaki-san had it all, and now it looks like it's swinging back to Takaichi-san. And as I said, if she can't bring the people into her group, she doesn't have the experience then to be prime minister. Now she's showing that she can do that. And the Yoshimura and Koizumi young dude coalition seems like it's setting up for the future as well, which is very interesting. Heather Flink says, I promise I will not judge. Heather, if you were here right now, I'd give you a big hug. Heather is a really great supporter here. I'm guessing you like Trump. You can guess all you want. I like everybody. As I said, if President Biden had come to Japan and I had a chance to meet him, I would have. And I did. I went to, when the ambassador came to Japan, I was invited to go hear him speak at the American club we called the ACCJ. And you guys were here, because after I did a live stream, showing you the Azabu area, some of the new buildings there. And I was very impressed with Rahm Emanuel as the, and hearing him talk. I didn't get a chance to talk with him one on one, but I heard him talk and I was there. And he really had an affinity for Japan. And I loved that. He was a huge train otaku. It's like he's a pretty reasonable and very smart guy. And maybe he didn't do the greatest job in Chicago. I'm not sure if anybody could. I do think, you know, I supported the ambassador here in Japan. I would have loved to have taken, shared a train ride with him. I have friends at Japan Rail. I think it had to do with security and stuff, but it would have been pretty cool to ride on some of these luxury tourist trains and then do an episode because his love for Japanese trains and Japanese culture really shined through in the posts that he did. He was very active on Twitter for his love of Japan. I extraordinarily appreciated that. That was Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, who was here. I thought he did a really good job. I didn't always agree with him, but I don't agree with everybody all the time. And you guys don't agree with me all the time. And that's totally cool. I love it when people disagree with me. I'm not the kind of person that look, I'm a foreigner in Japan. I'm the weird one out here. All right. I've always been an outsider. I've always been sort of on my own. All right. It's just the way it is. I used to live in the countryside where I was the only foreigner around. There weren't any other foreigners that I found. This is before social media, too. So, I mean, I'm used to being the odd man out. OK, so I don't need to be feeling like I'm a part of some group or identity. I don't need to have a tag on me. I don't need to have a MAGA tag or a left wing tag or, you know, LDP or Komeito tag on me. I got an Only in Japan tag and I got a wonderful community of people. That's all that really matters. Especially here. And I think it's good to talk about it in this so we don't have to talk about it in every single one.

00:40:36 John Daub: And again, for those that are US politics, it doesn't really matter here. OK. And no matter who you voted for, there's just this unifying thing that you all seem to forget. And I see like the sometimes. The chat can get really toxic. Everybody seems to forget that unifying thing. And that's the thing that I'm really connected with with our servicemen and women here. It's like they got a patch that says, you know, United States. They write United States, USA on their chests when they get deployed to war. Doesn't matter what party or who they voted for for president. They go in and do their job. And I feel like a really strong affinity with them being here in a foreign country as they do. And I come from that point of view with things. So all the toxicity on who you voted for, didn't vote for. You know what? First of all, you shouldn't really be public with who you voted for. I'm not sure how that's helpful. That's something that people used to guard because you don't want people to know your politics or your religion. For that matter, you kind of just kept it in because it's something that divided people. But these days, even if people do do that, you should be tolerant of it. That's the one thing I love about India. You got to go to India. And somebody did ask me about that. There are so many different languages in India. There's no Hindi might be the universal language as well as English to a lesser extent. But there's so many regional languages. There are so many religions in India. You know, Hinduism is the majority there. But it's just amazing to me how tolerant people are most of the time. There's incidences, of course, but we can learn a lot from India in that respect, too. At least in my own personal experiences and social media. I think that's just exacerbated a lot of the differences that we have. So I just kind of remember what we all have in common. Japan. Hopefully there's more rain. There's a lot of it just started raining right here.

00:42:41 John Daub: Yeah, Nat, right. That's right. Like if the prime minister does a bad job, you can guarantee that in 12 months or less, they will be booted. That's the way it works here. It's not like we have to live with the prime minister for a very long time. Japan has a history of Prime Minister changing quite a lot. All right, guys, it's raining. I'm going to go take cover here. But I hope this is a little bit more transparent. I like and again, you don't have to agree with me. You can also keep trying to guess what my political party is. As I told you, I don't wear a patch on my chest except for one patch. The United States of America and Japan. And I have actually a pin that I wear when I'm on TV that that has a U.S. flag and a Japanese flag on it. I wear that when I go on TV. Now, which isn't as often because I'm quite busy. But that's important for everybody to know that I want our countries to be unified and I want the best for what these people around me. Libertarian, perhaps. I'm not going to tell you. It's not really your business, but I don't mind you trying to guess it because I really don't care. I think it's not somebody who gets offended. I get angry sometimes for like five seconds and then I come back right to the middle because it doesn't really matter. And the whole thing I start thinking about how small we are, how big the galaxy is, how insignificant I am. It's a little dot on the entire thing. You can't even see it. And like this stuff really doesn't matter. In the end, we just want to go in a direction that is where everybody can eat a nice curry rice over there or a bowl of Yoshinoya, even the vegetarians. And I think they have a veggie option there, too. See, even Yoshinoya understands. It doesn't matter. All right, guys, take care. Walk your bikes. Be safe. And I'll talk to you in a zero political stream. Oh, hello. Zero political stream soon in another live stream coming up.