And if so, could this be a bad thing, as the New York Times claims some in Japan are fretting?

There has even been concern here that the Democrats' margin of victory could be too big. Some in the media have said a landslide could let the Democrats simply replace the Liberal Democrats as a dominant party, instead of creating the competitive two-party democracy that many had hoped would emerge from this election.

Would the people, not the bureaucrats and politicians, 'in Japan's consensus-driven political culture', desiring change and fed up with the LDP, 'abhor' the 'heavy-handed tactics' of a totally dominant DPJ?

The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.