Here we go again. Japan has decided that having a government for more than five minutes is just too much work. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who has barely had time to unpack her boxes or figure out where the bathroom is in the official residence, has dissolved the lower house of Parliament. She blew it up. She looked at her job, looked at the calendar, and said, "You know what? Let’s roll the dice again."

She is setting up a "snap election" for February 8. Do you know what a snap election is? It is when a politician decides that you aren't paying enough attention to them. It is a desperate cry for attention disguised as democracy. It is a leader looking in the mirror and asking, "Do you still love me?" And then forcing millions of people to stand in the cold to answer that question. It is pathetic. It is annoying. And in Japan, it happens so often you could set your watch by it.

Let’s be honest about what is happening here. Japan changes leaders like normal people change socks. Sometimes, they change them faster than socks. If you blink, you miss three different Prime Ministers. It is a revolving door that spins so fast it could power the entire Tokyo subway system. Takaichi has been in charge for just months. Months. In the real world, if you quit your job or asked to be re-hired after three months, you would be laughed out of the building. But in politics, this is called a "strategy." It is supposed to be a power move. It is supposed to show strength. It doesn't show strength. It shows that the system is broken and nobody knows how to fix it.

So now, the Japanese people have to go vote. Again. They have to trudge out on February 8. Have you ever been to Japan in February? It is cold. It is miserable. It is gray. It is the perfect weather for the depressing act of voting for the same people who have been running the country since the invention of the color television. That is the dirty little secret of Japanese politics. They have elections all the time, but nothing ever changes. The Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP, wins almost every single time. They are the house band of Japan. They play the same songs, year after year, and nobody really likes the music anymore, but nobody wants to hire a new band because the new band might be worse.

It is the illusion of choice. It is like walking into a store and seeing fifty different brands of water. They all taste the same. They all cost too much. But you have to pick one, so you pick the one with the biggest label. That is the LDP. The opposition parties in Japan are barely even trying. They are just there to make it look like a contest. They are the Washington Generals to the LDP's Harlem Globetrotters. They show up, they trip over their own shoelaces, they lose, and they go home. It is embarrassing to watch.

Takaichi wants a "mandate." That is a fancy political word that means "permission to do whatever I want." She thinks that if she wins this snap election, everyone will stop complaining and let her run the show. She is wrong. People will vote for her party because they are tired and they don't like change. They will vote for the status quo because the status quo is safe. But that is not a mandate. That is apathy. That is a shrug. That is a country saying, "Fine, whatever, just keep the trains running on time."

And let's look at the timing. She dissolves parliament right now. Why? Because the polls probably look decent for five minutes. That is how cynical these people are. They don't schedule elections when it is good for the country. They schedule them when their own numbers tick up by half a percent. They treat the entire nation like a focus group. It is selfish. It is greedy. It is exactly what I expect from politicians. The Left does it, the Right does it, the Center does it. They are all grifters looking for job security in a world where real people have none.

So, prepare for weeks of loud trucks driving around Japanese cities screaming names through megaphones. That is how they campaign there. They yell their names at you until you submit. Then, on February 8, everyone will vote, the LDP will win, Takaichi will smile, and we will be back here in six months doing this all over again. Nothing will get fixed. The economy will still be weird. The debt will still be huge. But hey, at least the politicians got to feel important for a few weeks. What a joke.