Delusions

 This is a fascinating piece in The Atlantic about Native Hawaiians' desire for independence. It proceeds from a place of historical truth: American plantation owners overthrew the sovereign government of Hawaii that eventually led to it's annexation by the United States. However, it elides the fact that - unlike in a true colony - Hawaii became a state. Hawaii is not Puerto Rico or Guam; it enjoys the same sovereign rights as Virginia or Massachusetts. 

Hawaii was "stolen" in a fair reading of the word, but it seems also fair to say that there are statute of limitations on such crimes. At some point, Hawaii - like the Dakotas - passed from Native to American. The crime existed, but the ability to redress that crime has faded away into history. 

The idea that Hawaii will somehow become an independent nation again is largely delusional, though the article concludes with some Hawaii nationalists predicting the collapse of the United States, which is possible if very unlikely. That delusion, however, is rooted in exactly the form of solipsistic thinking that typifies the sort of leftist thinking that has both polluted "the discourse" and helped re-elect Trump.

Among the dumber things that we have embraced recently is "naming acknowledgments" where meetings are begun by saying "We gather here on Nipmuck land..."

No. 

They lost it.  It's sad for them and there is place for learning about that and a need to do so, but migratory conflict and displacement predated European arrival. People are conquered. That happens. People are displaced. Unraveling that is frankly impossible, and requires a "sins of the fathers paid for by the sons." You cannot simultaneously argue that all Palestinians are guiltless in the crimes of October 7th, but all Whites are guilty in the crimes of the 1890s in Hawaii. 

What's more, "naming acknowledgements" are the most obvious and farcical form of performative slacktivism. In the article, Brian Schatz is quoted at length about how he simply can't be bothered by fanciful concerns about independence that isn't going to happen, when there are real, tangible problems that Native Hawaiians face. You can bemoan those problems as being rooted in Hawaii's annexation, but that solves exactly none of the real problems that Native Hawaiians face. 

For instance, there is one faction that wants Native Hawaiians given the same rights as Native American tribes. They should have tribal lands where they are somewhat sovereign. Yet for some, this is a distraction from complete independence. What's more, I defy you to argue that the reservation system for Native Americans has been an unalloyed good for them.

There is a curious intellectual force at play in many of these arguments that somehow being morally right is, in itself, a condition that creates victory. There's something weirdly childish in this impulse. "This isn't fair!" as a political strategy. No shit it not's fair. Politics is the competition over and exercise of power. Power doesn't give a shit about "fair" unless the powerful decide that it does. "Fair" didn't lead to the Nuremburg Trials, the combined military might of the Allies did.

This doesn't even account for the subjective nature of morality itself. Hawaii is dependent on external food supplies; independence without guaranteeing the continuation of that - not to mention the hundreds of millions, even billions that the US military funnels into the Hawaiian economy - would led to an economic catastrophe. Expelling Whites and limiting tourism would leave Hawaiians rulers of a smoldering wreck of a place. While it seems many of the Hawaiian Nationalists welcome this, who exactly are they speaking for beyond themselves?

This is exactly the sort of zero-sum identity politics that created the broad backlash to what has otherwise been a striking few decades for what we might call "cultural liberalism." Gay marriage is commonplace; generalized sexism is not as accepted as Trump's election suggests it might be and is far less than it once was; we are legalizing pot and gambling at remarkable rates. However, fanciful ideas like somehow expelling the United States from Hawaii is exactly the sort of head scratching nonsense that makes the Left - and in guilt by association the Democratic Party - seem desperately out of touch with the American people's day to day concerns.