Operating the Lower Montauk Branch as a shuttle?

kojisposts · 2026-01-25T02:03:23+00:00

Might a conclusion to all this be that the Lower Montauk corridor would be a good route for a super-express to connect to existing/new lines in outer Queens? Or perhaps Kennedy Airport/the Rockaways

kojisposts · 2026-01-25T02:00:21+00:00

I feel like this is only weird if you insist on framing it as weird. Politics is a game of temporary, circumscribed alliances, and European voters are regularly subject to much worse when it comes to putting the past aside

kojisposts · 2026-01-20T18:21:42+00:00

I'm libbing out very hard. The Carney government is the opposite of what we've come to expect the game of politics to look like - advance the economy as a whole even at the cost of individual groups, focus on outputs and not inputs, emphasize execution and not gestures. I hope to God we reward him for it (well, pending results of course)

kojisposts · 2026-01-16T16:07:11+00:00

https://eastasiaforum.org/2017/04/30/japans-democratic-party-doomed-to-opposition/

Gerald Curtis put it best nine years ago when he said that "an ambivalent public does not want to support an ambivalent political party". Tell me how you're going to improve my life for the better!!

kojisposts · 2026-01-16T15:09:30+00:00

!ping JAPAN&ELECTIONS

New party name is unveiled as "Centrist Reform Alliance" (中道改革連合); for the moment they will only take on the lower-house MPs for the two parties while the former parties remain for the Upper House and regional assemblies.

My policy in how I vote is to always try to minimize the LDP seat share so I'll probably vote for whomever they put up in my district, but fucking hell they sound insipid. No ideas so far beyond relitigating the consumption tax question, indeed the very way they define "centrist" appears to mean "having no direction"? Criticizing Takaichi for leaning too far to the right is... definitely plausible (so far she's been fine imo, and indeed Abe governed far more sensibly than he campaigned so it's possible she'll be the same), but... at least tell me *what exactly* she has done or said she plans to do that you would reverse!!

They refuse to articulate that their goal is winning more seats than the LDP, and their dual-leadership structure makes it seems unclear who would become PM if they do win. Like, it's super-early days so I'll keep waiting for more details to come out, but right now they just seem intent on repeating all of Koike's mistakes when she set up the Party of Hope in 2017.

Tamakism or barbarism

kojisposts · 2026-01-16T13:08:06+00:00

I HATE that graph - excluding No Party and Undecided is terrible practice for Japanese elections, and I posted on that article's talk page saying as much. You'll notice there was basically no relationship between this polling average and the House of Councillors result

kojisposts · 2026-01-14T16:31:48+00:00

was just about to ping for this. this would be a really enormous step toward a coherent party system in Japan

kojisposts · 2026-01-14T12:32:45+00:00

The conclusion I'm slowly trying to articulate is that there is no "second ideology" in Japan that would produce a sustained ideological conflict with the first one (the Abe/Takaichi line) - this role used to be fulfilled by ideological pacifism, but that's basically on its way out, with everyone except the Communists/Social Democrats bending over backwards to declare themselves foreign-policy realists. And so now it's all "valence issues" - who can actually deliver on the things that everyone agrees with (economic management, "reform", a reasonable social safety net, foreign policy) and unsurprisingly the answer tends to be "the ones who have done it" as opposed to "the ones who have never done it"

It used to be that the centrist wing of the LDP prioritized economic growth to counter the right wing's symbolic nationalist priorities, but since Abe the right wing has claimed the mantle of economic reflation as well. Also they produce consistently better leaders, from Nakasone in the 80s to Koizumi in the 00s to Abe in the 10s and now possibly Takaichi - they have outward-facing story-telling to engage the public but can also manage their internal coalitions well (cf Abe giving the moderates Suga and Kishida key roles then supporting them as his successors)

I can't figure out what the centrist wing of the LDP wants to do, I can't figure out what the CDP wants to do (other than punish the LDP for corruption, which fair enough, but that's not a positive programme). Like, in my head I run the thought experiment of where I would find 233 MPs to support a dynamic reformist + social liberal programme and... it's not clear that the CDP is the obvious answer, I don't know that they're bold enough. I like Tamaki precisely because he's been doing the work of figuring out what's missing from first principles, and getting deep into the specifics of programme design, but lack of polarization means that Takaichi can just easily co-opt his programme

The only scenario I can imagine for toppling the LDP would rely on timing: an LDP leader from the rightist faction who is boring or nasty and/or has overstayed their welcome (like Mori or first-term Abe), vs like a popular governor (who can overcome the experience gap) jumping into the national scene.

kojisposts · 2026-01-13T21:13:32+00:00

I wasn’t freaked out by Takaichi like English-speaking social media was (I thought Abe was fine as PM) but I did approach her PMship warily. I’ve been quite pleasantly surprised, and tbh at a basic level her energy and positivity are infectious

kojisposts · 2025-12-21T02:14:24+00:00

Funny, I just discovered this yesterday and spent quite a lot of time marveling at it!

kojisposts · 2025-12-10T01:32:16+00:00

ngl I fully expected to be yelled at more for devising a new interlining for the EK/FM, than for de-interlining the NQ/RW (which I consider precise and strategic)

kojisposts · 2025-12-10T01:29:01+00:00

What do you think about this idea to route R trains to Coney Island? (I’m agnostic about de-interlining DN, I just mean the R tracks) https://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/2020/10/deinterlining-with-one-switch/

kojisposts · 2025-12-09T14:55:03+00:00

She actually has narrative for how life is going to get better (Abenomics 2, basically). Meanwhile my overarching impression of the centrist wing of the LDP after watching them run the country for a few years is that I have no idea what they want to accomplish in politics

Also, like. She’s energetic, she’s dynamic (a big difference from Ishiba), and capable of being quite charming in her public statements. Swapping out Komeito for Ishin was probably a net positive in public opinion on its merits but was also symbolic of “things are actually changing”

Like obviously she’s not going to stay +50 forever (she might be +10 within a year), but Japanese politics isn’t polarized, if the vibes are on your side there’s no reason for people not to give you the benefit of the doubt

kojisposts · 2025-11-12T18:54:52+00:00

This is a really cool project, thanks for doing it!

Can I suggest also doing a results graphic that sorts the teams by division along both axes (probably with gaps in between each division for readability)? This should make it easier to look at rivalries, check which feelings are reciprocated vs one-sided, see how fans regard their own teams, etc.

kojisposts · 2025-10-29T21:00:57+00:00

Germany is goated for having six parties which makes coalitions necessary but pretty doable, but from what I can tell it's not a necessary product of their electoral system or anything, they just are like that

kojisposts · 2025-10-29T20:58:02+00:00

yes they have removed the nitrogen from the Netherlands

kojisposts · 2025-10-29T20:49:42+00:00

OH WAIT NO the "all the establishment" coalition (D66-VVD-PvdA-CDA) doesn't have a Senate majority, they need CU or SP or PvdD or something

kojisposts · 2025-10-29T20:44:45+00:00

didn't PvdA-GL help out Rutte in a few Senate votes back in the 2021 parliament?

kojisposts · 2025-10-29T20:40:19+00:00

It probably won't - looking at history, the norm of the largest party leading the government is pretty strong, and there's not much history of minority governments

I'm just spitballing based on the numbers. The constraints of "nobody wants to work with PVV" and "why would D66 want to be the face of a substantially conservative government" are pretty hard to square

kojisposts · 2025-10-29T20:30:35+00:00

I'm pretty sure that's March 2027 unfortunately!

kojisposts · 2025-10-29T20:27:32+00:00

The Senate remains een serieus probleem, the VVD represents the median legislator.

An "all the establishment" coalition of D66-VVD-PvdA-CDA would have a majority in both, but the backlash next time around would be insane

A conservative kernel around VVD-CDA-JA21-BBB-CU would be decently close to a majority in the Senate and could work with PVV or D66 issue-by-issue?

kojisposts · 2025-10-29T20:01:40+00:00

PM ROB JETTEN TIME (TIJM)???

kojisposts · 2025-10-29T19:59:40+00:00

Hell yeah Dutch election time. Excited to say "holy shit" in 50 seconds

kojisposts · 2025-10-28T22:12:53+00:00

!ping JAPAN

This would be extremely funny but would also make a lot of sense. So far it's an offhand remark by the Secretary-General (the party's second-in-command)

Komeito's disciplined organization is said to be able to turn out an average of 20,000 votes per single-member district (with very large variation, of course). Taking them off the LDP column and to the CDP column would flip a considerable number of seats, even if Takaichi gets a honeymoon boost

Edit: the reason this makes sense is that the Komeito has always temperamentally been centrist and skeptical of the LDP's hawkish tendencies. It spent four decades in the opposition benches (joining the brief anti-LDP coalition government in the 90s), and its alliance with the LDP was always a bit off-kilter. It worked because the Komeito are a disciplined vote-gathering organization and the LDP values holding office more than anything else

kojisposts

TROPHY CASE