‘ Wish you weren’t here’: Hawaii preps for Trump
Protests will greet the president in Obama’s solid- blue home state.
HONOLULU — There’s a popular postcard of Hawaii that shows the blue waters of Waikiki Beach and the famed Diamond Head with the greeting “Aloha” — a symbol of the state’s openarmed, easygoing way of life.
But this week, a different image has spread around the islands through f liers and social media. It shows the same picture with a green scoreboard: “Hawaii 3, Trump 0” — a nod to the state’s judicial defeats of the president’s travel ban — under the words, “Wish you weren’t here.”
When President Trump arrives in Honolulu on Friday, he’ll be in enemy territory. This is still Obama country, a place where the former president was born and raised, and tourists continue to f lock to his childhood haunts. The islands, where 30% of voters supported Trump in the 2016 presidential election — the smallest share of any state — have long been derided by the president. For years he led the “birther” movement that sowed doubt that Obama was born here. Trump has railed for months against a Honolulu judge who repeatedly struck down his travel ban.
Presidential visits always bring concerns of gridlock and protest while giving an administration a chance to meet with federal and state officials, items on Trump’s list for his visit that will feature tours of military and historic sites. But with Trump, the stakes of a stop in Honolulu before his f ivecountry Asia tour seem higher because the state ignores or challenges him at every turn.
If there’s a headquarters of the Trump resistance, this state — run nearly entirely by Democrats — might be it.
“Oh no. It’s horrible,” said Honolulu resident Jon Osorio, who said he’d rather see the president skip the state altogether. “He’s bound to say something foolish on nuclear weapons, or North Korea, or race or native Hawaiians or the large number of Asian people who live here,” said Osorio, a professor of Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
“I don’t know if Hawaii even registers on the Trump scale. We seem so low- priority to him,” said Robert Kay, a freelance writer who runs the website ObamasNeighborhood. com, which guides tourists to spots where Obama spent his youth. They include places like the bungalow where he lived as a child, the Baskin Robbins where he got his f irst job, and Sandy Beach, where he would bodysurf.
“I’ve lived here 20 years and I don’t hear about Trump much. But Obama is a homeboy. He’s still on people’s minds,” Kay said.
Trump’s visit will last under 24 hours. He arrives at Joint Base Pearl Harbor/ Hickam on Friday afternoon before he meets with military officials at Pacific Command, tours Pearl Harbor and lays a wreath at the Arizona Memorial. He’ll then spend the night before taking off for Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, where he will attend meetings with the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders group and the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations.
But many Hawaiians hope his visit here will expose the president to the environmental and security threats that face the state.
“When I first found out he was coming here, my reaction was a physical one, like you touch something sticky and slimy,” said Gaye Chan, an art professor at the University of Hawaii who formed an anti- Trump coalition, Hawaii J20+. The group is spearheading the protest outside the state Capitol on Friday that’s advertised in the “Wish you weren’t here” postcards. The American Civil Liberties Union, Sierra Club, Women’s March Oahu chapter and dozens of other organizations have endorsed the demonstration.
“Most of what his administration is doing just feels so wrong to us. He’s harming the environment, he’s harming LGBTQ people, he’s insulting races and ethnicities for us in a state where the majority of us are not white,” Chan said.
Police are also preparing for two other anti- Trump protests over the weekend, including one Saturday that coincides with a national series of “refuse fascism” demonstrations. It’s unlikely Trump’s motorcade will pass by demonstrators, but he will get face time with higher- profile critics.
Speaking to reporters this week, Democratic Gov. David Ige, a Trump critic, said he would greet the president and First Lady Melania Trump on Friday afternoon with an “Aloha.”
“I don’t intend to have a heated issue or political debate on the tarmac,” Ige said. “Whenever any president visits ... I think it’s an opportunity to learn about the people, place and culture. We all learned a long time ago that when we work together we accomplish great things.”
State officials were infuriated this year when Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions called Hawaii “an island in the Pacific” in response to a Honolulu- based federal judge blocking the travel ban. Sessions said he was making a joke when he said he was “amazed” that a judge so far away could take on the president. But for Hawaiians, it added to a sense that mainlanders like Trump see them as foreigners.
For some residents and tourists, the president’s visit may go unnoticed.
“I had no idea he was coming,” said Tayte Alan, a 19- year- old employee at Island Snow, a clothing store and shave ice shop in Kailua. The business, about 30 minutes northeast of Honolulu, is a favorite of Obama’s, and photographs of the former president from past visits line a wall.
“We’re busier here with people who come for photos on the bench where Obama eats his dessert,” Alan said.
This week, one of those visitors was Shigeru Kithikoshi of Sapporo, Japan, on a family tour of famous Oahu sites.
Kithikoshi, 69, said he didn’t know Trump would be in Hawaii and Japan, where he’ll meet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over the weekend.
“I like, I respect Obama,” he said as he posed for photos in front of the shop with shave ice in hand. “I don’t understand Trump.”