For a moment there, it looked like we were the resistance.

Not all of us, obviously. Thirty-seven percent of Hawaiʻi voters cast their ballots for Donald Trump and JD Vance in the 2024 election, and it sometimes seems like all 193,661 of them are flying huge Trump flags off their vehicles while blasting down the H-1.

Early resistance to President Trump’s barrage of executive orders noticeably came from Hawaiʻi Democrats, who were sticking their necks out even before state attorneys general started filing lawsuits and judges started blocking some of Trump’s edicts. Hawaiʻi’s top elected officials were voicing dissent while the rest of Washington seemed either stunned into silence or scrambling to obey Trump’s orders.

Hawaiʻi is one of a handful of states where the governor, senators and every representative in Congress is a Democrat. Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Mexico and Rhode Island are the others.

We’re farthest away from Washington, protected by the ocean that surrounds us and our cherished diversity and fierce aloha. Maybe way out here in the middle of the Pacific, it feels safe enough to poke the bear. Or maybe being from an island already makes a person so scrappy and marginalized that speaking truth to power doesn’t seem like a threat because power doesn’t pay attention.

Last Monday, U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would put a hold on all of Trump’s nominees to the State Department until Trump backs off his attempts to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, the country’s agency for foreign assistance.

“This is self-inflicted chaos of epic proportions that will have dangerous consequences all around the world,” Schatz said. “Dismantling USAID is illegal, and it makes us less safe. USAID was created by federal law and is funded by Congress. Donald Trump and Elon Musk can’t just wish it away with a stroke of a pen – they need to pass a law.”

Sen. Mazie Hirono, who has been in her warrior queen era for a while now, has been racking up headlines like:

“Hirono blasts defense secretary for revoking Milley’s security.”

“Hirono grills Hegseth over allegations of drinking on the job.”

“Mazie Hirono goes scorched earth on Kash Patel during hearing.”

While Hirono is blasting, grilling and scorching earth, Congresswoman Jill Tokuda has been taking some swings herself.

“Eight days into his dictatorship, President Trump has mandated a federal funding freeze that will cost Hawaiʻi hundreds of millions in federal support,” Tokuda said in a news release. “Instead of lowering costs for families like he promised, Donald Trump is breaking the law in a desperate attempt to destroy programs that keep our keiki fed, enable our kupuna to access to health care, support our local businesses, and keep our communities functioning.”

Even Congressman Ed Case, a guy who exudes all the firepower of a potato gun, had some choice words for Trump’s pick for Director of National Intelligence, saying former Hawaiʻi Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard would be a threat to national security. Case held another round of community meetings in his district at the end of January, talking to constituents about what to expect. He’s scheduled an “urgent tele talk story” for Monday to discuss what’s going on in Washington with the Trump actions.

“We always knew that this was going to be a confusing, chaotic, divisive, and upsetting administration, and here we are,” Case said on Hawaii News Now.

Meanwhile, Gov. Josh Green went to Washington to testify against Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to head the Department of Health and Human services. He made the rounds in the media telling the story of how RFK managed to convince people in Samoa to avoid the measles vaccine, blaming the devastating 2019 outbreak on Kennedy’s anti-vax efforts.

“He’s telling lie after lie, misinformation after misinformation. And this is the person who, with no experience, no training, will be in charge of the Health and Human Services Department, which is huge — $1.7 trillion,” Green said on CBS News.

CBS News anchor Robert Costa, perhaps taking note of Green’s bravado, asked him in a live interview if he might consider a run for president.

“The Democratic Party, your party, is out in the wilderness, not controlling the House, the Senate, or the White House. Jimmy Carter, an outsider came out of nowhere in 1976. A lot of people in Washington are wondering, come 2028, could it be another outsider who emerges this time around, decades later, to give the Democratic Party a new voice?”

Green demurred. “That’s incredibly flattering … that seems highly unlikely … you’d have to convince my wife … One never knows, but I’m happy to be governor.”

So the answer was no, but put a pin in that one and circle back later.

Meanwhile, Trump’s big immigration sweep in Hawaiʻi scooped up 20 people who already had warrants out for their arrests. ICE already knew where they lived. They just hadn’t gotten around to picking them up yet. Pictures of the backs of the people arrested were posted on social media, like it was all for show just to check a box that yes, all 50 states got raided.

Fine. Forget about us out here. We’ll be coalescing our opposition, because some of the craziness that has happened in the last few weeks would not fly here. Hawaiʻi is changing, but we’re not nearly as divided as the rest of America. We still have aloha. We still have aloha ʻāina.

For example, Trump’s order to dump 2.2 billion gallons of water from California reservoirs into the ground for a bogus publicity stunt would never happen in Hawaiʻi, where we know the value of water. Ernie Lau of the Board of Water Supply would throw his body across the out valve and hundreds of activists would join him.

The trick, of course, is to resist this president’s unlawful acts without getting the entire state in the crosshairs of his vengeance.

Though perhaps the only way to truly resist is to do so regardless of the consequences.