Populist Contradictions in Digital Authoritarianism: The Case of Takaichi Sanae, Abe Shinzo, and the Online Masses

This paper examines the paradoxical dynamics of political leadership and mass reception in contemporary Japan. Specifically, it highlights how factions such as the Aso group strategically utilize the symbolic legacy of former Prime Min- ister Shinzo Abe to promote Takaichi Sanae, despite simultaneous criticisms of religious–political collusion that were central to Abe’s era. Through an analysis of Yahoo! Japan comment sections (Yafukome), this study demonstrates how online masses accept and even embrace internal contradictions: condemning the Unifica- tion Church while praising Abe as a heroic figure. This contradiction reveals the mechanism by which populist energy is absorbed into the party system. The comparative perspective further situates this phenomenon alongside Ger- man cases of digital populism, showing that, in both contexts, social media spaces function as ”pseudo-consensus machines.” These machines allow contradictory sen- timents to be mobilized without resolution, thus reproducing the structural logic of prewar organizations such as Japan’s Taisei Yokusankai. Ultimately, this paper ar- gues that in the age of social networks, masses are not only controlled by top-down propaganda, but also by the affective circuits of self-reinforcing digital populism.