The first sentence. Add to that a large percentage of voter apathy. Hawaii employs a large percentage per capita in government and in the public service sector. Self preservation.
All of this my opinion. Of course.
So ever since the plantation industry died in the state, so did the biggest private sector employer to the population.
Once that power vacuum was created; the commies that were present in the 1960s, got voted into office and backfilled that vacuum to replace the biggest private sector employer with the public sector (the sector they control).
This would explain why despite the water infrastructure, climate and topsoil why the state to this day has never allowed a full scale industrial agriculture operation to properly start back up and take hold here. Because whether its Industrial Cannabis, Hemp, Agave, Coco beans, or otherwise any Ag operation would pose a great threat to their control and influence over the working, voting class.
The small hawaii farmer grants and such they keep preaching on the news, it's be design to pay lip service and keep these guys from sprouting up from under their thumb of control (for lack of a better expression).
I always knew about the apathy, I'm sure the so called
Sovereignty Movement you see around here is nothing more than controlled opposition to discourage potential persons from voting in elections. Phrases like "It's stolen land" or "why vote for land that was stolen" etc. They know if more people participated, that would threaten their rule as well. If the Sovereignty folks were at all serious about getting their land back, they would either run as an independent party and win back power or get organized and stage a coupe. neither of which they have done and they had a lot of time to get it done.
If the people of this state aren't awake yet at high crime rates, unaffordable housing, mentally ill loonatics on their streets, and being treated as second class citizens in their own state they better wake up and smell the $#!+ that Josh Greed, Sylvia Puke, Ron Cuuchi, Bozo Hirono, Brian $#!+zhead and others have been serving them for the last few decades!