Washington Wednesday: A nation decides

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday, the 11th of February. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Time now for Washington Wednesday!

Over the weekend, Japan's ruling conservative party won three quarters of the seats in the lower house of parliament after a snap election. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hopes to use that momentum to strengthen the country’s military, and its ties to the U.S.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy has more.

MARY MUNCY: The election gave the party its biggest majority since it’s founding 70 years ago. Soon after, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told the Japanese people that she would work to amend the country’s pacifist constitution to help them counter China.

TAKAICHI: (Japanese) A nation must defend itself with its own hands… We will steadfastly protect our nation's peace and independence.

She says the nation must defend itself with its own hands, and that the party will protect the nation’s peace and independence.

SOUND: [TAKAICHI WIN ANNOUNCEMENT]

In October, Takaichi became the country’s first female Prime Minister. She leads the Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP. The LDP is generally conservative, but because of its size, it’s home to a wide range of politicians. 

Takaichi is on the more conservative side.

TAKAICHI: (Japanese) I would like to put my efforts into measures to combat rising prices at all costs.

During the race, Takaichi committed to combatting rising prices “at all costs.” So far, that’s meant cutting taxes and bolstering relations with the United States, and continuing to observe trade deals her predecessor, Shigeru Ishiba, put in place.

Ishiba resigned in September amid scandal and a series of electoral defeats. Takaichi seems to have reversed the party’s popularity, partly because of her relatability. 

She grew up in a middle class family and shares snippets of her life on social media. She’s a former heavy metal drummer who’s also into motorcycles.

She also has a visible work ethic and spends long hours in her office reviewing policy, championing her catchphrase “work, work, work.”

TAKAICHI: (Japanese) The people of our nation gave us a powerful push forward… I feel a renewed sense of resolve.

She says the super majority in Parliament is a big responsibility, and she has a renewed sense of resolve to better her country.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

MAST: Joining us now to talk about that and more is political scientist Hunter Baker. He is a WORLD Opinions Contributor. 

Good morning Hunter!

HUNTER BAKER: Good morning!

MAST: Hunter, Takaichi also has plans for tightening immigration policy and she has been vocal about opposing policies that she says would weaken traditional family structures.

So here’s another hard-line conservative winning office—much like we’ve seen throughout South America recently. Can you do some compare-and-contrast here? Is this part of a trend or something else?

BAKER: So you mentioned that she is against policies that weaken traditional family structures. I think that that alone is a really big deal. Specifically because my understanding is that she actually opposes same sex marriage, and so, you know, for a lot of Americans, they think of Japan as the land of the future. And so to hear that this new prime minister with this big majority is sort of a traditionalist when it comes to morality is a big deal. 

And yes, you're right. I mean, we've seen countries in Latin America going conservative, one after the other. And not only going conservative, but having policy victories, you know, improvements in the economy and crime and things like that. So if she can do likewise, and she really has an opportunity here, I mean, she has more than two thirds of the lower house of parliament in Japan, and that means that her policies are effectively veto proof when it comes to the upper house in Japan. So, she's going to be like Margaret Thatcher was back in the late 70s and 80s. She's going to be a policymaker who can do what she wants to do; but she'll also be accountable for it.

From the American perspective, this is pretty exciting. I mean, we spend a lot of time worrying about Taiwan and what China will do about Taiwan, and here we have a Japanese prime minister who has forthrightly said that she is concerned about China taking some kind of offensive step toward Taiwan and that Japan might do something about it. And when the Chinese kind of reared up against her, she did not back down.

So that's very helpful. It gives us sort of another power to act as a check upon China in the region. 

And plus, you know, they're already a great economic partner, they're also talking about maybe doing away with the pacifist language in their constitution. I think at one time, Americans would have been very worried about something like that, but no longer; I think that we count Japan as a definite friend, and we'd like to see them helping us in the Pacific region.

REICHARD: All right, moving on to a different topic: Fallout from the release of the Epstein files continues…in Europe. 

Now, we’ve reported that Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under fire for appointing Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the U.S. two years ago, despite known ties to the convicted sex offender Epstein. And you’ll remember Prince Andrew was stripped of his titles last year as allegations mounted against him.

In the U.S., response seems to be more muted. So far, Harvard professor and former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is one of the few to step back from public life after his conversations with Epstein came to light.

But yesterday, House lawmakers Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna released the names of six more individuals in the files that may be implicated in Epstein’s misdeeds.

So Hunter, I want to ask you, what do you make of the response so far in the U.S. as compared to Europe?

BAKER: I agree that even though this is kind of an American scandal, or we think of it as an American scandal with Epstein as an American billionaire, sort of an American fixer, we have seen tremendous impact in Europe. And you're right, I mean Prince Andrew, or maybe the former Prince Andrew, is one of the biggest examples of somebody who has suffered a tremendous loss of prestige and reputation as a result of it. 

And you're also right that it has been less of a big deal in the U.S. Not because of lack of interest. It's just that I think that we have been a little bit less clear about exactly who is guilty and what they are guilty of.

When we look at somebody like Prince Andrew, the accusations were was that he had actually procured an underage woman with Epstein's help. With Americans who have sort of come under scrutiny, that has been less clear. What the line has typically been is we see people who have maintained a connection with Epstein after he was accused. That seems to be the line, that after he was accused, people want you to have broken off from him very clearly, to distance yourself from his crimes. And anybody who didn't do that, anybody who maintained correspondence or a lot of communication, like Larry Summers, has been sort of expelled from public life. 

But we'll see, more may be to come. Out of those six individuals named by the House lawmakers or who helped to expose those names, Leslie Wexner, the billionaire formerly of L brands, Victoria's Secret, and other important retail brands, has been named, and he's a big name. I think that he's on the board of Ohio State University, and I think that if we went to Columbus, Ohio, we'd see his name on a number of things there. So he's going to get a lot of scrutiny, and we'll find out what happens.

MAST: Well, Hunter, a story we didn’t get to last week was the Trump Accounts summit at the end of January. President Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent talked about investing in America’s future, with seed money in investment accounts for American children.

TRUMP : So in conclusion, the ultimate success of the Trump accounts will be measured not just in the wealth created; it will be seen in young people buying houses that they could never have even dreamed of buying. It'll be seen in diplomas earned, companies founded, families formed, and more babies born.

Now this comes as young Americans are increasingly not getting married and having children, and apps that let investors play the stock market are growing in popularity...many at the expense of financial literacy.

Do you think government incentives like the Trump Accounts can do anything to change these trends?

BAKER: I am extremely hopeful about the Trump accounts. 

Now, on the one hand, it's a small thing, right? It's $1,000 in an account that grows throughout your life, assuming that you don't take it out. And that's, that's not a lot of money, it's a whole lot less than it used to be. But I think it's a place to begin. 

I think that the Trump account represents an opportunity to bring all Americans into what we might call the investor class. And I think about when I was in high school, I had a coach who taught an economics class, and he gave all of us a vision, and who encouraged us, "if you could just invest, you know, just this relatively small amount every year, until you were retired, you would retire as a millionaire." 

And I'll tell you, I think a lot of us did it! I think a lot of us observed that discipline, and, you know, have improved our futures as a result. And I think that that's what I see with the Trump account. You know, the billionaire Michael Dell has already contributed to that account, I think others may take that opportunity, I think family members may take that opportunity. So I think that, I think that it will become a bigger thing. I think that it will give young people something to think about and to work on, and hopefully help people to appreciate the wealth creation that's possible in a market society.

MAST: Well Hunter, are you aware of any plans to increase financial literacy, or how does that work if you have the money, but no financial literacy to go with it?

BAKER: I don't, I don't know that we do have a plan, but hopefully the existence of the Trump account will increase people's interest in the idea of investing and building savings over a significant period. 

And you know, we're way past the era where you just put money in a savings account. Interest rates are not that high, but you put it in an index fund, like the SNP500, or something like that, and you can see significant growth over a lifetime.

REICHARD: One last question before we go, Hunter. President Trump spoke at last week’s National Prayer Breakfast, and he spoke for well over an hour, and he did receive criticism for both the tone and the content of the address. It included personal insults and self-aggrandizing.

Now historically, the prayer breakfast has had a much more sober feel to it. But this seems more like just another political event. Do you think that's right? And has that been happening for awhile now?

BAKER: I think it's a big mistake to politicize that event. I think about reading Chuck Colson's memoir, Born Again, and I think about the people who came alongside him, Republican and Democrat, Christian brothers, and those people were the same sorts of people, the same community of the people who were big supporters of the National Prayer Breakfast. And so the goal was to, to really avoid political partisanship and instead to build up a sense of community of brotherhood and sisterhood under God at that event. 

Now, over the years, there have been some, some that kind of stand out. For example, in 1973, Senator Mark Hatfield, Republican from Oregon, gave out a pretty hot address about Vietnam. In fact, afterwards, Billy Graham, who had wanted Mark Hatfield to be Nixon's VP, was somewhat apologetic to Nixon for sort of that stinging rebuke of a speech that Hatfield gave at that event back then. 

But since then, I think about 2012 with Eric Metaxas, I think that he made some, some sort of strong yet winsome remarks about the sanctity of life, for example, and biblical sexuality.

But then in 2013, Ben Carson, the famed African American surgeon who ultimately became a cabinet secretary, he made some, some strong comments regarding health care policy. So that was a bit of a politicization. 

But I think that Donald Trump, as he usually does, has been the guy who breaks through the tape. He is, he is sort of the champion politicizer of the prayer breakfast after what happened recently.

REICHARD: Hunter Baker is provost at North Greenville University and a WORLD Opinions contributor. Thanks so much, Hunter.

BAKER: Thank you.

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