Rep. Fukumoto Responds to Hate Letter, Warns GOP

After receiving a letter from a self-proclaimed Trump supporter attacking her Japanese ancestry and her support for “illegals, black thugs, Muslims and bombs, and gays,” Rep. Beth Fukumoto released a statement today.

Rep. Fukumoto. Maui Now graphic.

Fukumoto left the Republican Party earlier this year after being criticized over her participation in the Hawaiʻi Women’s March.

“This letter isn’t the first to come across my desk, but it’s so painfully relevant to everything that has unfolded in America these last few days that I believed it needed to be addressed,” said Rep. Fukumoto in a statement this afternoon.

She went further to say that the individual that wrote the letter was inspired by the president and his statements.

“I worked to fight racist rhetoric when I was a member of the Republican Party, and I left when I realized I couldn’t win that fight from within. The white nationalist undercurrent of the Presidential campaign stretched far beyond Donald Trump. His success is the result of white nationalism left unchecked within the GOP for years,” Rep. Fukumoto said.

“Today, every elected official in the GOP needs to make a choice. Be vocal, public and specific in your opposition to prejudice everywhere – especially in the Oval Office. Or, be complicit and continue to work peacefully with a party that has gained electoral wins by building coalitions of mistrust and hate,” she said.