Following dismal results in Japan’s parliamentary elections, there is a broad consensus among Japanese lawmakers and political analysts that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s days are numbered. No one, however, seems to have said that directly to Ishiba, who has vowed to stay on.

The current political crisis is the result of a July 20 election in Japan’s upper house, the less-powerful chamber in parliament. It has no direct role in determining the prime minister but is an indicator of political fortunes in a country where the foundation of individual leaders is generally unstable, even as the ruling party remains solid.

Following dismal results in Japan’s parliamentary elections, there is a broad consensus among Japanese lawmakers and political analysts that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s days are numbered. No one, however, seems to have said that directly to Ishiba, who has vowed to stay on.

The current political crisis is the result of a July 20 election in Japan’s upper house, the less-powerful chamber in parliament. It has no direct role in determining the prime minister but is an indicator of political fortunes in a country where the foundation of individual leaders is generally unstable, even as the ruling party remains solid.

Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has been in power for 64 of the past 70 years since its founding in 1955, lost its majority—even with the added support of its religious-backed coalition partner, Komeito. The ruling coalition now has 122 of the 248 seats in the upper house, and with just 220 of the 465 seats in the lower house, its grasp on power is tenuous.

This decline has, however, failed to provide any boost to the main opposition parties. The Constitutional Democratic Party, created from a merger of parties in 2017 and whose predecessors managed to grab power from 2009 to 2012, has 148 seats in the lower house and just 38 in the upper house.

Instead, Japan is joining the growing cadre of western nations where young voters, especially men, rely on social media for their view of the world and don’t like what they see. As elsewhere, this has created anger over easy targets, including higher prices and foreigners—but the populists who have emerged as a result haven’t offered any clear policies. The telegenic Sanseito party, which emerged from an angry YouTube channel and campaigned on the familiarly nebulous concept........

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