This year, our major political parties will learn they cannot handpick who will become president.

We saw what happened to Jeb Bush, the “handpicked” candidate of the Republican Party leadership. Likewise, the power brokers in the Democratic Party will see that their anointed one, Hillary Clinton, isn’t who the people want.

The Democrats should know that already, given Clinton’s less-than-impressive performance in the primaries against only one competitor, a politician relatively unknown to the nation until recently.

The Republicans don’t get it either. Donald Trump is facing multiple, high-powered adversaries. Yet he continues to come out on top. That should tell the Republican Party’s leadership they should stop opposing a Trump presidential nomination.

For now though, leaders of our political parties remain more interested in what they want rather than what the people want.

Charles Kerr

Kalama Valley

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Gabbard more than a mere politician

Hooray for U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

She is showing the willingness to speak truth to power, something rare in modern politics. That raises her above the status of a mere politician. She is a statesman. We’re lucky to have her.

Richard Maxwell

Haiku, Maui

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Funding reflects independence

Donald Trump’s willingness to fund his own campaign helps highlight the issue of how money can deflect the “arc of predictable outcomes” in a given race.

Here is someone not constrained by political convention because of a need to obtain financing from party power brokers. This, in fact, is his actual appeal, and it is instructive.

But there are at least two sides to a coin. By not being subject to the ordinary constraints imposed by a given system of philosophical political beliefs and its funding mechanisms, a wealthy candidate is free to express his or her views without regard to particular core values, factual details or historical accuracy, focusing instead upon appeals to passion and oversimpli- fication.

Strangely, “The Donald” has shown us the way: candidates funded, not by donations of political action committees or private interests, but by the independent funding of an unbiased American electorate.

David Higgins

Kailua

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Animosity toward minorities troubling

As an “oldster” and a lifelong Republican, I grew up in the 1950s watching documentaries about the rise of Adolf Hitler after Germany’s World War I defeat.

Hitler blamed Germany’s economic problems on the Jews, Gypsies and other minorities.

I cannot help but find a similarity with Donald Trump’s populist approach to our current, very complex, problems. His repeated attacks blaming minorities for our problems is a disgrace.

America was founded in the 1700s by those who wanted to escape oppression. Our country has always accepted refugees, whether they be Irish, Polish, Jewish or other minorities over the last 200 years.

Is Trump proposing to demolish Lady Liberty and turn our back upon our history?

Bob Volkwein

Aiea

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A&B doesn’t need all the water it wants

KAHEA opposes House Bill 2501, the proposed special law for Alexander & Baldwin’s holdover over-usage of East Maui waters.

Viewed historically and now, A&B’s desire for more water than is needed, more than the law allows, is a wrong that all of us must call out.

HB 2501 is not only wrong for East Maui farmers, it is wrong to allow corporations to raid public trust resources. It would tell our courts and communities that laws are made by and for those corporations.

I urge our legislators to not put their thumb on the scale in this centuries-long struggle to return water to East Maui streams.

Bianca Isaki

Board secretary, KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance

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It’s doubtful tax hike would do any good

State government here never ceases to amaze and confuse.

The state proposes increasing the tax on gasoline, as well as increasing the cost for registering vehicles, all under the guise of using the funds for fixing our roads. That would yield about $78 million annually.

But in nearly the same breath state officials admit that they have not used millions of dollars in federal funds earmarked for the same purpose.

If they couldn’t/wouldn’t/didn’t spend the federal funds, what assurances are there that they will use the new funds for their intended purpose?

John Henry

Kaneohe

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Tourism depends greatly on beaches

It is sad that Hawaii’s economy depends so narrowly on tourism and the military.

It is also sad that agriculture, once the main breadwinner in Hawaii, also is fading.

Pretty soon tourism will see the same fate, as rising ocean levels erode Hawaii’s oh-so-important beaches. Without these great beaches, there will hardly be a reason for tourists to visit the Hawaiian islands.

Unless government takes action, Hawaii will decline both socially and economically. Many say it is already happening.

Government definitely will have to downsize. Privatization, especially of Hawaii’s educational system, needs to take place.

Dean Nagasako

Honokaa, Hawaii island