Today's Exactly100: When Elections Change Nothing, and It’s a Good Thing

When I was still in that part of the advertising world that required attending regional and international conferences, the real learning came from conversations with fellow adfolk.

I remember a Japanese adman asking how elections change our country—or rather, how changes in leadership affect us. I said they affect us greatly, that we were hoping for transformation.

He said that in Japan, nothing changes, no great shifts occur after elections. He said it like a flaw. I realized later, it was their strength. The bureaucracy runs so efficiently that, whatever happens “up there,” life goes on—steady, unshaken, unchanged. /Vincent Pozon