Why did Team Mirai win? Did we choose them, or were we made to choose them?

✅ The surprise of "Wait, Team Mirai won?"

The 2025 House of Councillors election.

When I saw the news that Team Mirai had won one seat in the proportional representation,
I was honestly surprised.

They had no local base or organization.
They didn't have the abundant funds of major political parties.
The candidates' name recognition wasn't that high either.

And yet, they won.

With so many candidates out there,
why were they able to gather votes?

When I was thinking about that sense of unease,
what suddenly came to mind wasAkira Tachibana's book
"Spirituals".

This time, I will propose a hypothesis based on the commonalities between Team Mirai's election strategy and the methods depicted in "Spirituals".

✅ Even if it looks like a "grassroots movement," was there a designed empathy behind it?

Team Mirai's activities
looked like a handmade movement by citizens
at first glance.

But in reality, it was quite strategic.

Short-form videos on TikTok and YouTube
Participation events that felt like "gamifying" poster hanging
A site that counts the total amount of donations in real time

All of them were firmly designed
to make people "want to watch," "want to share,"
and "want to participate."

Moreover, that flow was very natural.

Perhaps, for many people,
rather than "I was convinced by their political philosophy and supported them,"
the flow was more like
"I wanted to support them, so I voted for them."

✅ Has the "future of elections" depicted in "Spirituals" become a reality?

Akira Tachibana's book
"Spirituals: The Mystery of 'Me'"

This is a book that delves into the fact that
"humans are beings moved unconsciously "
based on scientific findings.

I am using Amazon Associates.

In "The Spirituals,"
for example, the following topics are discussed:

From Facebook "Like" history,
an individual's personality can be predicted with high accuracy.

When ads or messages are delivered based on that,
people think, "I chose this of my own free will,"
while in reality, they are being emotionally manipulated.

In fact, in the 2016 US presidential election,
such "psychological targeting" actually took place.

This is a somewhat scary story.
However, it would not be strange if that method
has already infiltrated current Japanese elections.

✅ Team Mirai and "The Spirituals" — 7 Common Points

While also using ChatGPT's research capabilities,
what I found are the following 7 common points.

🧠 1. Strategy using data

The Spirituals:
Analyzing personality from Facebook "Likes"
Team Mirai:
Analyzing SNS and dialogue data with AI and reflecting it in policy

💬 2. Messages that move emotions

The Spirituals:
Manipulation through ads tailored to anxiety and anger
Team Mirai:
Focusing on positive words like "hope," "future," and "peace of mind"

👤 3. Building a candidate's image

The Spirituals:
A "protagonist" with a narrative gains empathy
Team Mirai:
Mr. Anno = young and sincere reformer, representative of the IT generation

🎯 4. Clarification of targets

The Spirituals:
Ads optimized for each individual
Team Mirai:
Rhetoric and content optimized for urban areas, young people, and internet users

💰 5. Crowdfunding that "visualized" support

The Spirituals:
Support = expression of one's identity
Team Mirai:
Over 100 million yen in donations disclosed in real-time

🪟 6. "Transparency" performance for a sense of trust

The Spirituals:
Gaining trust by exposing oneself
Team Mirai:
Disclosing how donations and expenditures are used each time

🗳 7. The image of a "new democracy"

Spirituals:
A future where AI and emotions influence voting behavior
Team Mirai:
Emphasizing the novelty of 'conversational AI democracy'

✅ Of course, to add for the sake of clarity—

I personally do not believe that Team Mirai
intentionally set out to 'manipulate voters by appealing to emotions.'

However, I wanted to pose the question:
Does the modern election strategy utilizing social media
have a structure that naturally appeals to our 'emotions'?
I wanted to raise this question.

Perhaps that structure and the way Team Mirai presented themselves
just happened to overlap—
isn't that a possibility?

✅ Next, I want to ask: Was it 'enthusiasm without philosophy'?

It is certain that their strategy utilizing social media
hit the mark well.

But how much

suggestion of a paradigm or philosophy was there regarding 'where we are heading' or 'what kind of society we want to create'?

Here, I will borrow the theory of
international political scientist Kan Ito.

Mr. Ito taught that
'politics has three Ps.'

Philosophy:
Ideas such as views on the state, society, and humanity
Paradigm:
The structure of judgment that embodies that philosophy
Policy:
Actual measures and campaign pledges

Now, let's look at Team Mirai along these axes.

✅ Policy:
They have it. And it is attractively packaged.
Modern themes such as AI utilization, education reform, and transparent politics are lined up.

❔ Paradigm:
Somewhat unclear. Whether they are liberal or conservative,
their distance from the existing system and their axis of opposition are ambiguous.

❓ Philosophy:
Even harder to see. Fundamental visions such as 'what is a state,'
'what is a human,' and 'what is freedom'
are not being discussed.

In other words,
even if 'what they will do (Policy)'
is being discussed,

'why they will do it (Paradigm)'
'what kind of society they are aiming for in the first place (Philosophy)'

might have been passed over while remaining a blank—that doubt remains.

✅ Summary: This is just a hypothesis

Of course, these are just one
way of looking at it.

There is also a strong possibility that
my assessment is wrong.

Certainly, if we focus on the point that
“the very mechanism for gaining support was
elaborately designed”,
then

Team Mirai's victory was
truly a seat 'won by design'.

I don't think other minor parties have any choice but to
study this mechanism.

Elections are no longer just about
competing over 'ideals' or 'policies'.

How much can you move emotions,
gain empathy, and turn that into votes—

I feel that the main axis of strategy
is beginning to shift there.

However, precisely because of that,
I want to ask us ourselves as well.

Did we 'choose' them because we agreed
with their philosophy and ideals?

Or,
were we dominated by empathy and emotion
and 'made to choose' them?

Thank you for reading the article to the end,
😊
A 'Like'or'Comment'with your thoughts
would be encouraging!

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