Tangle - Shinzo Abe's assassination.

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

On Friday, Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest serving prime minister, was assassinated while giving a speech in Nara. Plus, a question about Democrats passing and abortion rights bill.You can read today's podcast here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the death of Shinzo Abe, the assassination of Shinzo Abe in Japan last week. And we also have a pretty interesting reader question about Democrats and abortion rights. But as always, before we jump in, we'll start off with some quick hits. First up, Elon Musk sent a letter to Twitter terminating his $44 billion bid for the company, citing a material breach of multiple provisions of their agreement.

Number two, Steve Bannon agreed to testify before the House panel investigating the January 6th attacks. Number three, President Biden will announce $100 million in aid to Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem during his visit to the Middle East. Number four, amid an economic crisis, Sri Lanka's prime minister and president have agreed to resign just two months into their terms after protesters broke into the presidential palace and set the prime minister's home on fire. Number five, 64% of Democratic voters say they want someone else besides President Biden to run for president in 2024. Tonight, the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shocked not just Japan, but the world. Flags were ordered to half-staff here in the United States to honor that country's longest-serving Prime Minister.

As Japan mourns the loss of a longtime leader, mounting questions around the shocking death of Shinzo Abe. Overnight, Abe's body arriving atving prime minister, was assassinated while giving a speech in the town of Nara. He was 67 years old. Abe, who was best known for fighting deflation with Abe-nomics and beefing up Japan's military to counter China, had resigned from his position as prime minister in 2020. His protege and incumbent prime minister, Fumio Kishida, called the killing absolutely unforgivable. Police say a 41-year-old man admitted to the shooting. It was an especially shocking event given gun violence's rarity in Japan, which has severely limited the right to own firearms. In 2018, just nine people died from gun violence in all of Japan, which has severely limited the right to own firearms. In 2018, just nine people died

from gun violence in all of Japan, including one suicide, according to the World Health Organization. For context, Japan has a population of 125 million people, about one-third that of the United States, which had 39,740 gun deaths that same year. The suspect appears to have used a homemade gun-like weapon to fire on Abe. He was apparently motivated by anger toward a group he believed Abe had been associated with. When he was shot, Abe was speaking in support of the Liberal Democratic Party LDP candidates ahead of major upper house elections in Japan on July 10th. Despite resigning, Abe still remains an influential figure in Japan's politics. Two days after his death, Abe's LDP won a two-thirds supermajority in the nation's parliament, opening the door for Kishida to increase its defense spending and pursue Abe's long-time

goal of amending Japan's constitution so it can become a stronger military power. Currently, Japan is limited by a clause that only allows a quote-unquote self-defense force. But Japan still faces a plummeting yen, rising energy prices, and inflation issues. Polls showed voters were concerned with national security, China's threats to Taiwan, and North Korea's growing nuclear program. Abe is widely considered to have been one of the most influential leaders in Japan's history. Today, we are going to take a look at some opinions from the typical left and right leaning sources here in the US, as well as from Japan, and then my take. But given that there

isn't a huge variance of opinions about this particular news item, we are not dividing the opinions up into the right and left sections. First up, we'll start with Frida Gaitis, who, in CNN, said the news came like a thunderbolt. If it was shocking to people around the world, it was devastating in Japan, where gun violence is essentially non-existent, Guidus wrote. Abe's killing would have been appalling at any time. Now, however, it adds to the sense of an unstable world in crisis, in which democracies, in particular, appear to be under siege. It's still early, and we don't know the assassin's motivation, but the violent death of Japan's most prominent politician of the 21st century and his longest-serving prime minister is occurring at a time when the violence,

including political violence, is surging in the United States, when Ukraine, a fledgling democracy, is fighting for its survival against invading forces from an increasingly anti-democratic, aggressive Russia. It comes just hours after the resignation of Britain's prime minister, Russia. It comes just hours after the resignation of Britain's prime minister, a key player in support for Ukraine, with no successor in place, just over a week after China, an exporter of authoritarian technology, celebrated the 25th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong, having just crushed the territory's democracy in what critics have said is a violation of its promises, she wrote. Now comes the killing of a towering political figure in Japan's democracy. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called him a friend to the

United States. Abe understood that without a strong economy, he wouldn't achieve his other central goal, the board wrote. This was to normalize Japan's strategic place in the world. The theme was for Japan to become a better ally to the U.S. and other partners by bolstering its own military capabilities. As prime minister, he increased defense spending and broke through a long-time cap of 1% of GDP on military outlays, and after he stepped down as PM in 2020, he advocated for more. He also launched a debate about the pacifist clause in Japan's constitution prohibiting much military activity. Abe wasn't able to push through an amendment, though he did secure a reinterpretation, allowing more Japanese participation

in alliance military endeavors. With China seeking regional dominance, this is no small breakthrough. Even in the attempt, Abe forced Japanese politicians and voters to start confronting difficult questions about Japan's place in the world, the board said. He played a similar role this year when he tried to ignite a debate about whether Japan ought to participate in a nuclear sharing with the U.S. to deter regional threats. Abe was not always as effective an advocate for these policies as he could have been. His nationalist tone, particularly on some of Japan's terrible wartime history, stoked needless tensions with Japan's Asian neighbors. But no country gets the platonic ideal of a philosopher king for a leader. If a country is

lucky, it gets an adept politician with a plan to tackle the country's ills. Shinzo Abe was that leader for Japan, and his country and the world will miss his influence. Riley Walters wrote about what the loss means for the world. Abe oversaw Japan's completion of a number of trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement, and he campaigned to have more women leaders in Japan's often male-dominated workforce, Walters said. Abe often was criticized for his defense reforms and his desire for constitutional reform. While his critics labeled him a hawk for his aggressive defense and foreign policies, his foresight was correct. The world is now challenged by a more belligerent China. Abe's efforts formed the Quadrilateral Strategic Dialogue

or Quad between Japan, the U.S., Australia, and India, and it was his campaign for a free and open Indo-Pacific that has been adopted into the Biden administration's foreign policy. These efforts laid the foundation for future leadership in Japan to build on. His legacy is putting Japan on a path toward a more globalized economy while investing in stronger defense. In an interview this year, when asked what he thinks about Prime Minister Kishida, Abe said he respected Kishida's realist approach to foreign policy. Specifically, he was confident that Kishida would make the right decisions when it came to such issues as the future of Japan-Taiwan relations. In other words, he believed Japan's future is in good hands.

Tobias Harris, the author of a book on Shinzo Abe, said it was important to remember the other side of Abe's story. He was the most polarizing Japanese political figure in several generations, a political battler whose commitment to his vision of the country's future invited the adoration of his friends and the opproprium of his critics, Harris wrote. From his revival in Japan's House of Representatives as a junior lawmaker in 1993, Abe pursued controversial goals. Above all else, he wanted to transform core institutions of the post-war order introduced by the U.S. occupation and embraced by a portion of Japan's political

class. He believed that these institutions, most notably the education system and the 1947 constitution written largely by U.S. occupation officials, prevented Japan from retaking its rightful place among the world's great powers, reducing it to subordinate independence on the United States. This agenda put Abe and his allies on a collision course with many members of the political class. The Japanese left, fiercely protective of the post-war constitution, hated Abe, seeing him and the new right as militarists. But his ideas also alienated some of the older generation in Abe's Liberal Democratic Party, the LDP, many of whom had experienced the war and were attached

to post-war Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida's vision of a lightly armed Japan that was firmly allied with the United States and focused on its role as a civilian economic superpower, Harris said. While Abe learned to soft-pedal or quietly drop some of these more controversial positions by the time he returned to the premiership for a second time in 2012, they nevertheless helped to explain why he often inspired distrust, if not outright opposition, from significant portions of the Japanese public. Tomohiko Taniguchi, Abe's former speechwriter, wrote about what Shinzo Abe really thought. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu,

a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu

vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. One frequently asked question about the late Japanese Prime Minister was this, Learn more at fluselvax.ca Moscow, and Tokyo have yet to sign a peace treaty. By doing so, Abe thought that Japan could reduce the military tension to its north from Russia. For Japan to seek that path and to stand tall in arguably the most dangerous geopolitical setting in the world, he believed that it is the duty of a Japanese prime minister to build the best possible rapport with whoever happens to be the president of the United States. He accomplished the latter adeptly and strengthened

the U.S.-Japan alliance, yet failed on his mission to resolve the outstanding issues in the Northern Front with Russia, he said. With Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the situation has gotten worse. For the first time in Japanese history, Japan must now confront military threats from three fronts all at the same time, which reinforces the importance of Japan building robust alliance ties with the United States and deepening quasi-alliances with the like-minded democratic nations such as Australia and India, to name only two. Japan is, and will always be, a maritime trading nation that sits on the periphery of the vast landmass, which is currently dominated by undemocratic militarist powers. What else could Japan do, Abe questioned, but to anchor itself even more firmly with

seafaring democracies such as the United States, Australia, and India. The Japan Times editorial board said, Mercifully, guns remain a rarity in Japan. In fact, this country has come to one of the lowest rates of gun violence in the world. According to a police white paper, there were only 21 arrests for the use of firearms in 2020, and 12 of them were gang related. World Health Organization figures show that Japan had just 9 firearm-related deaths in 2018, down from 23 the year before. The rate of firearm deaths per 100,000 people is.01. For comparison, the US number exceeds 4 per 100,000. Much of the

credit goes to strict gun control laws, which were, ironically, written by the U.S. occupation authorities. There is a more fundamental issue at hand, respect for democracy and the absolute imperative to resolve political differences through the ballot box exclusively. Half a world away, another political leader has been removed from power through the political process as he lost the confidence of his party. That is how political change is done. There is no place for violence in this process. The attempt by any individual or group of individuals to impose their will on the country through violent means is terrorism, pure and simple. That is unacceptable and must be condemned by all, whatever the political stripe or inclination. All right, that is it for some opinions about this story from the right and the

left, and of course from Japan, which brings us to my take. So I'm not an expert on Japanese politics, and I'm definitely not going to pretend to be one here. But as someone who has followed the Japan-US relationship for a while, just through the American lens, the news was just shocking. Abe's influence wasn't just on Japan, but he reoriented the entire region. And as some of the commentators noted above, he had strong foresight about China and the kinds of alliances that would be needed to counter them on the global stage. From the U.S. perspective, what was notable about Abe is that he was a nationalist who, as Harris put it, quote, saw his country as engaged in a fierce competition among nations and believed that a politician's duty, first and foremost, was to ensure the

security and prosperity of his people. His ambitions to expand Japan's military was welcomed by U.S. leaders of many stripes, and many of his ideas are now more popular than they were when he was in office, even if some of his critics have described them as, quote, authoritarian tinges. In Japan, as divisive as Abe may have been, he also had some notable wins. He lowered the voting age from 20 to 18 and tried to usher in an economic focus on the country's youth, a policy focus that rightly won him their support. He pushed women to step into the labor force and female labor participation outpaced the U.S. under his watch. He also ushered Japan into significant trade deals that expanded its already massive influence across the globe.

For your average Japanese person, there was a lot to love. But, as I said, aside from Japan's relationship with the U.S., my understanding is rather limited, and I learned a lot just from reading so many opinions about his assassination. What is clear is that the story of his death fits into a larger picture of so many democracies across the world, including the United Kingdom, France, and the United States, and Israel, that are all in considerable turmoil. So I'm certain I have a lot of readers and listeners either living in Japan or from Japan or experts on Japan, and I'm curious, what do you think? I'm very interested to hear. So write in, you can write in, reach me, Isaac, I-S-A-A-C,

at readtangle.com to share your thoughts. And maybe I'll put them in a forthcoming podcast or newsletter. All right. That is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one is a lot more in my wheelhouse. It's from Don in Colorado Springs. He said, do you really believe Democrats actually want to secure abortion rights through achievable legislation? I believe they would rather have the issue as a perpetual campaign and fundraising tool. It's also true for gun control, voting, and other issues that can be used as a wedge. Republicans, same. All right, Don, so it's an interesting question. I think, generally speaking, you're right to be skeptical about any political party's interest in solving an issue that matters to voters and drives turnout. The rationale there is, as you said, once the issue is resolved, it can't be used as

a wedge anymore. That being said, I think Democrats have a genuine interest in solving the issue of abortion rights, and many of them would do it if they could. There's a caveat here in a second. Joe Biden's presidency has been tumultuous, and the wins he has delivered to the Democratic base have been fleeting and limited thus far. If he could secure a limited or narrow federal abortion rights legislation, that would be a major win for Democrats to run on in the midterms, and I think they would genuinely want that. The one caveat to this that we don't really know is how many Democratic senators and members of Congress actually want to make abortion rights abortion rights. For the most part, it's safe to assume they are pro-choice, but like America as a whole,

pro-choice spans a huge gambit of views. Right now, Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have mostly taken the flak for blocking a move on the filibuster, and thus, we haven't gotten what I'd say is a quote-unquote honest vote on an abortion bill, i.e. one where the outcome could really be to introduce a piece of abortion rights legislation. So it's hard to say definitively, but I think it's safe to assume that nearly every Democratic senator and the vast majority of Democratic House members would vote for and pass an abortion rights bill tomorrow if they could. Don't forget, if you want to ask a question, you can reply to any newsletter to do that,

or you can just write to me, isaac at readtangle.com. All right, next up is our story that matters. Last week, President Biden issued an executive order that attempts to protect access to reproductive health services in the wake of Roe v. Wade being struck down. There are no actions Biden can take to overrule state laws where abortions are now banned, but the order attempts to keep abortifacient medication and emergency contraceptives available for purchase. It also aims to protect patient privacy and launches a public education campaign for abortion resources. Biden is also considering a declaration of a public health emergency that would unlock more resources to meet interstate demand for abortion services. The Wall Street Journal has the story. There is a link to it in today's newsletter.

The Wall Street Journal has the story. There is a link to it in today's newsletter. All right, next up is our numbers section. Nine is the total number of years that Shinzo Abe served as prime minister. 33% is President Biden's job approval rating, according to New York Times' Siena College poll. 86 is the age President Biden would be when his second term ends if he were to be re-elected. The number of leaked documents in the so-called Uber files, which reveal the company flouted laws and exploited drivers, is 124,000. The new minimum salary for House aides, which the Senate is now trying to match, is $45,000 per year.

Senate is now trying to match is $45,000 per year. Alright, last but not least, our have a nice day section. Anyone who has ever explored a creek, river, or woods has probably run into a familiar piece of litter, abandoned tires. But a new park in Tennessee has found a fun way to repurpose them as hard surface walking and biking trails. Officials from Tennessee State Park and Tennessee Department of Transportation have officially cut the ribbon on a new 2.5 mile long trail in Fuller State Park made entirely from rubber crumbs derived from tires. The tires had been illegally dumped in the area around the park, gathered by volunteers, then transformed into crumbs by a tire recycling center. Good News Network has the story, and there's a link to it in today's newsletter.

All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. Quick note, I want to apologize if things sound a little bit different today. I am in the process of a move, I'll just say. I'm relocating and had to build a little studio on the fly this morning. Things have been very hectic in my world, and I know the sound quality might not be the best of the best, but we're going to get things sorted here pretty quick, and we'll get back to that A-plus work as soon as we can.

In the meantime, if you want to support our work and, you know, my new studio, go to readtangle.com slash membership to become a subscriber. Either way, we'll be right back here same time tomorrow. Peace. Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, We'll be right back. is family's buried history and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease.

Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. If you were listening to this podcast whilst waiting for a flight, would you be relaxing in a premium airport lounge?

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