Like many, I was first introduced to Mazie Hirono when Republicans attempted in 2017 to end the Affordable Care Act (ACA). During that debate, Ms. Hirono gave a personal, passionate defense of the ACA. She made this speech weeks after a diagnosis of stage IV kidney cancer and the surgery she needed.
She spoke of losses she experienced, including her two year old sister who died of pneumonia because she lacked health care in Japan where they were born. She spoke of the harm millions of Americans would experience by having their health insurance ripped away from them. And she demanded Republicans demonstrate compassion for those who face medical hardship.
Mazie Hirono was first elected to the Senate from Hawaii in 2013, after serving in the House for six years. She alos served as Hawaii’s Lieutenant Governor. She has represented the people of Hawaii with compassion and strength for her entire tenure. As a young child, both in Japan where she was born and in Hawaii after her family emigrated, she experienced loss and poverty. That experience formed the basis of her political ideology and career.
So how is she standing up to Trump? Let’s look.
First, as I’m sure is the question on most people’s minds, she did not follow her fellow Hawaiian Senator Brian Schatz in voting for cloture. In a statement released prior to the vote, she said, “ “By forcing a choice between a deeply partisan CR that removes critical guardrails and a shutdown that would enable Trump and Musk to sow yet more chaos, Republicans have made clear that they are more concerned with pleasing Donald Trump than protecting the American people.”
She is highly critical of Trump using the Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants to El Salvador. If you don’t have X, the statement includes, “Our immigration laws can already hold gang members accountable, but this administration has repeatedly used this pretext to demand sweeping new powers to evade due process. Donald Trump is not making anyone safer by resorting to unlawful actions that only inflict further chaos on our immigration system, immigrant communities, and our country.”
She has criticized Trump’s decision to illegally fire two Democrats on the FTC. She knows what the ultimate goal is, to legally allow Musk and other billionaires to act with impunity against consumers.
x
Trump is going after the FTC because it exists to protect consumers and small businesses against unfair, deceptive and anticompetitive acts by megacorporations.
Elon Musk & Trump’s other billionaire cronies don’t want anyone to stand in their way when they screw over consumers and small businesses.
— Senator Mazie K. Hirono (@hirono.senate.gov) 2025-03-20T13:50:43.321Z
At 77 years of age, and a survivor of kidney cancer, she appeared at the Department of Education to support workers fired by Trump and Musk. In this video, she outlines the many ways the Department of Education supports children from poorer families get the education they need.
And finally, she was blistering in her criticism of Trump regarding his plans to abandon Ukraine.
Mazie Hirono has stuck up for ordinary Americans over her entire political career, and at seventy seven years of age is attacking and fighting Trump with the same vigour as those many years younger.
Consistent in her approach to politics, as I’ve mentioned, is the role compassion for those less fortunate has in her political outlook. She is fighting the destruction of safeguards by this administration that protect those who live in poverty.
As I said in a diary I wrote about Judy Chu, and as I write during a day when so many diaries focus their anger and rage at Democrats, there is a choice. Party supporters can wallow in cynicism and defeatism or they can choose to support members of the House and Senate, to support Governors and Lt Governors and Attorney Generals, and to support all who are in this fight. There are many more like Mazie Hirono than diaries on this site want you to believe.
And if you want more information on what Democrats are doing, go read Janesaunts diary today on how Democrats are fighting and go read lpeacocks Thursday diaries on the Congressional Black Caucus. Both are awesome and deserve more support.
Links are here.
www.dailykos.com/…
www.dailykos.com/...
