What If? California and Japan switch location?

[ShadowArxxy]

If these parts of Japan joined the United States, how drastic would the change in discourse? I don't the japanese culture approves of the majority of things we were already starting to see during 2020.

Well, consider that Japanese culture expects innocent persons wrongfully arrested by the police to confess so that the police can save face by not admitting they were wrong, and in return the charges against them are quietly dropped. Consider that in Japan, it is completely normal for the police to have an omnipresent, almost Big Brother level presence throughout everything.

Even though Japan is strongly influenced by Western culture and legal philosophy, Japanese culture is radically different from American culture in ways that make them radically incompatible. While they are certainly a functional society in their own right, they're a functional society based on a lot of the opposite solutions to the same problems, differing in ways that are completely orthogonal to the American left/right political split and would honestly horrify both.

 

[The Original Sixth]

On the 13th of June 2020, when the clock struck midnight in the UTC, California and Japan switched places like so:

Spoiler: Picture

Obviously, Japan is placed in such a way that there're no casualties in the USA. Similiary, there're no Tsunami or Earthquakes from the sudden switch of landmasses. Now, what would be the short- and long-term consequences of this switch, political, cultural, and general?

The Democrats lose hand over fist in the next election when we make Japan a state and California an "oversee ally"?

 

[ShadowArxxy]

The Democrats lose hand over fist in the next election when we make Japan a state and California an "oversee ally"?

That's actually difficult to predict. Japanese political positions really do not map to the U.S. political spectrum at all.

 

[Buba]

That's actually difficult to predict. Japanese political positions really do not map to the U.S. political spectrum at all.

Yup.
The hypothetical US-Japanese voters vote for Japanese parties and House is split three ways, with no single party holding a majority. Fun times!
Presidential elections - almost certainly there is no EC majority and the vote goes to the House.
Something to which only one reaction is possible - 💋 🤣

I'd expect this to happen even if if California is cast off (which it won't, because why?).

California an "oversee ally"?

Overseas, surely?

 

[The Original Sixth]

Overseas, surely?

No.

 

[The Original Sixth]

That's actually difficult to predict. Japanese political positions really do not map to the U.S. political spectrum at all.

Yeah, but it's a one-past the post system. So they either have to supply a candidate that either side will endorse or they have to choose sides. And right now, I don't think the SJW coalition would really do well against the more socially and culturally coherent Japanese culture.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Hmm, well Japan has a population of about 120M. They tend to get about 50% voter turnout so under the theoretical condition that they all voted for the same Japanese candidate, that would put a theoretical Japanese president at about the same number of votes as the 2016 election though a touch behind what we saw in 2020. However, 2020 had an abnormally high US turnout, so Japan's voter base in terms of individual voters will be approx. the equal of the existing Democrat and Republican parties in Presidential elections.

That's a bit "Spherical Cow In Vacuum" since there's no reason to presume all of Japan will be a solid voting block, or that nobody in the formerly continental US will vote for a Japanese candidate. It also doesn't account for the Electoral College. It does, however, help to show how the Japanese population would completely rock the existing political structure.