Last week, I was shopping in Waipahu when I noticed that a mourning dove was stuck inside the store, attempting to fly through a transparent glass window.

Having been in politics for two decades, I can say that life for our people is often like that. The choice for us to move forward is clear, but we just can’t make the move for one reason or another. We don’t know why, but we can’t proceed. The result is often one of frustration and embitterment toward elected officials and the policy process.

There’s been concern lately that because the Hawaiʻi congressional delegation consists of all Democrats, the state might struggle with the new reality that Republicans control all three of the nation’s branches of government. 

“Badasses” like Sen. Mazie Hirono and go-tos for Democratic policy leadership like Sen. Brian Schatz have been beneficial for Hawaiʻi’s link to Washington, D.C., and to some extent, Hawaiʻi residents have enjoyed that advantage dating back decades thanks to other leaders like the late Sens. Daniel Akaka and Daniel Inouye.

But what will we do now? Elections have consequences, and in Washington, consequences can be brutal, because politics always follows power, not the other way around. Ronald Reagan once joked that after being inaugurated as president in 1981, then-U.S. Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker told him, “Mr. President, I want you to know that I will be with you through thick.”

“What about thin?” Reagan demanded to know.

“Welcome to Washington,” Baker replied.

We just finished an election, so there’s no point in me once more getting into the tired arguments of voting choices and their impact on the local or national palace economies. (I do recommend, in the meantime, you read authors like Robert Heinlein who warn that democracy and voting is both a right and a responsibility.) Even though it may look to some like Hawaiʻi’s path to prosperity comes through our congressional delegation’s efforts, we shouldn’t get trapped by illusions that this is the clear way for our future.

Time To Think Differently

It’s actually better that we start finding ways to stand up on our own feet now, rather than later. For years, we’ve made assumptions that D.C. will wipe our nose whenever we make policy mistakes or fall short. And yes, while one could argue that the annexation of the islands by the United States gives the national government more responsibility to provide for the general welfare of Hawaiʻi residents, we can’t control our destiny if someone else is paying for it.

Our congressional delegation is important, but they should not be so important that we can’t succeed without them. We want them to be able to go to D.C. and have clout because of who we are.

American Indian tribal governments are well aware of the moral traps and hazards that dependency on D.C. brings. Instead of being allowed to determine what works best for their specific needs and cultural beliefs, tribes often get bottlenecked by who controls and distributes funding, who hires loyal allies, and who can shoehorn local situations into national priorities. Corruption is rampant when easy money is abundant.

There will come a time, as we have already seen in recent years, when we have to push back against things that D.C. may like but we hate — the fuel tanks at Red Hill being a prime example. Whenever we say “no” to the national government and its priorities, there is always a palpable threat in the background that “you can say no, but … then we’ll just stop paying for you, Hawaiʻi.”

Having to back down on local priorities because of dependency on D.C. is a terrible position to be in. Local Democrats and Republicans alike should resent the fact that Hawaiʻi is in a position where our general welfare depends so intimately on who is in charge of the nation and who is representing Hawaiʻi to the nation. That’s no way to live. Even if we were still in a position where our congressional delegation was beloved in D.C., we should worry about the structural inequality of us having to thread so much through the help of two representatives and two senators.

I do not say this lightly, but Hawaiʻi’s county and state elected officials need to think of us as by ourselves in the Pacific Ocean and must therefore build Hawaiʻi into a robust hub that influences the other economies in the region. When we look at cities like Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong, they are all Asia-Pacific giants that control global finance, shipping and innovation. The future Hawaiʻi needs to be an Asia-Pacific leader, not an American dependent.

Let People Make Money

Times are tough in Hawaiʻi, but we have the fundamentals to position ourselves for a more powerful place in the world if our local elected leaders are willing to be more proactive. To begin, we have to modernize the infrastructure of our islands and build the capacity for small businesses and individuals alike to produce the goods and services that will make us regionally competitive. It’s hard to get ahead when our roads are worn out, our carrying capacities no longer support residents let alone the tourists, and when trash is everywhere.

We have to let people make money and innovate for our collective edification. Yes, we must make every effort to protect the environment and protect the character and history of our communities. But that can’t include a “prove you should be making money or else we’ll run you out of town” mindset toward local entrepreneurs and innovators.

We cannot make the default answer “no” to every big idea.

I’ve even recently seen people try to shut down local hamburger restaurants just because they didn’t like the name. This kind of vicious approach to obstructing other people from getting ahead needs to stop. The role of local government should be to empower local citizens starting and owning a business of their own, rather than finding ways to license, regulate, and micromanage people who just want to feed their families.

We also need to be open to strategic partnerships that bring wealth to Hawaiʻi. This means we cannot make the default answer “no” to every big idea. If there are ways that we can make things mutually beneficial to residents and multinational businesses that wish to do research or business in Hawaiʻi, we should try to find a way to “yes” as much as possible.

Our congressional delegation is important, but they should not be so important that we can’t succeed without them. We want them to be able to go to D.C. and have clout because of who we are, not who  they are, relative to the power structure and money. This may sound crazy, but there was a time in America when most people didn’t know who their elected officials in Congress were — not because they were ignorant, but because it didn’t matter.

We should work to make Hawaiʻi more independent and autonomous of what goes on in Washington. What we perceived as the clear way to prosperity may not be a choice at all, but a trap.