There are some great ideas out there to entertain and even implement. But perhaps we are too tired from being pushed and pulled by a crisis. Too worn out from being ignored by the political powers. Maybe too cynical that things could change for the better for everyone.
That bold vision is simply this – take whatever is happening at the White House (and Congress if he can) off the front pages of the news. I suspect that the new President, in his folksier ways, plans to reverse the concentration of interest on whatever his office is saying, in the news.
That is why I don’t think everyone should be shocked when you see what the City is spending on HPD with all these items. Why? Because that is what they did in the past. And that is what they are going to do in the future, especially if Congress opens the money bag again and dumps out even more COVID-related money.
The Democrats, in the end, still stay firmly in charge of Hawai‘i. While there may be new faces in the elected seats, the overall infrastructure of who is running Hawai‘i stays generally the same.
What the virus has shown to so many constituents is that while the “experienced” politician can talk a good game when it comes to managing the state in good times, the ability for them to convert into war-time crisis leaders does not exist. We are seeing now that the leaders we elected, for one thing, are falling apart when the situation has dramatically changed.
So, returning to the question, can these new pedigreed candidates relate to the people that they will represent in their offices like the one I described?
These letters provide a window. What they envision is not business as usual anytime soon. And to boot, many whose livelihoods are based on these jobs may not see them come back for some time.
One can surmise that the total number of layoffs occurring (or will occur) could be a much higher number when taken into account other news about closures of smaller entities in the last month.
For us to fix anything means that leadership needs to come forward and state clearly what the numbers mean and what we should be concentrating on. Personally, to me, the answer is that the infection rate is just that, an infection rate and that we should be focused on hospitalizations and death rates when it comes to making policy.
“[n]epotism erodes public trust in government institutions, their integrity, and operations. It creates reasonable concerns that the decisions of government are not based on merit and objectivity, but on family relations.”