How Tulsi Gabbard Brought 'Aloha' to Congress | Joe Rogan

It gets down to political and social issues, and it gets down to the heavy ones, things like abortion and war and freedom of religion. These things, I think, are the ones where we should all just be communicating as calmly and as objectively as possible. And we should discourage this tribal perspective, discourage this idea of being married to your own ideas and trying to win these arguments, which you see in Congress, which you see in political campaigns, which you see in television news is a fucking dumpster fire. Every single time they have the panel with the three people, it's just, bah! I can't watch it anymore. It's nonsense. Thank you for your time. What waste is this? It's just people shouting over people. You never find out what the fuck anybody really believes. Just hear their talking points blurted and vomited out. Right. The facts, the news, what's actually happening is completely lost. And it's so limited. And this is how a lot of us are getting our view of the world. And I feel like things are changing. I think the world is a different place than it was even just 10 years ago. I think so too. I think humans are different. I think we're not aware of how much all of this conversation and all of our analyzing the world around us has shifted over the last decade or so. People are looking, I feel like people are looking for the facts. They're looking for more information. They're less likely to just accept at face value what they're seeing on TV or what they're hearing, which I think is a positive thing. And I think we do need to look at the leadership of this country to set this culture for civil discourse, for making it okay and encouraging actually those kinds of conversations. And that's where if you look at it, you watch C-SPAN one night when you can't fall asleep, you'll see in the floor of Congress, you've got the Democrats who are all sitting on one side. You've got the Republicans all sitting on the other side. Unfortunately, not often enough do you see intermingling and conversation and people going to the other side of the aisle and actually getting to know people. That was something that when I first got elected, I was told, look, as a new member of Congress, serving in the minority with Republicans in charge, coming from a small state like Hawaii, you will never get anything done. So just accept it. Just accept that reality that you're not going to get anything done. Wait several years or whatever. But one of the first things that I did was I got to get to know people. I got to make friends. So my mom and dad, they're small business owners and they have this macadamia nut toffee business. And so I called home and I said, hey, mom, can you make 434 boxes of your toffee for every single member of Congress? All the Democrats, all the Republicans. She's like, wow, that's a great idea. Yeah, sure. I'd be happy to. And then I said, oh, I got one more one more request. Can you make a bigger box, 435 bigger boxes of toffee for the staff of every member of Congress? Because they're the ones who make shit happen. And she said, OK, that's going to take me a little bit longer. But yes, I think that's a great idea. So I started writing handwritten notes to every one of my colleagues introducing myself. And as we started delivering these little gifts of Aloha to their offices, it was amazing how quickly I saw while on the House floor casting votes of Republican chairman of powerful committees, making their way across from the Republican side to the Democratic side, saying, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It was delicious. I need to get more from you because I ate it all. I got to take some home to my wife or my husband and then saying, tell me what's going on in Hawaii. Tell me what issues your constituents are worried about. I'm the chairman of the transportation committee, the Agriculture Committee or whatever it is. Let me know how we can work together. Just that one small outreach of Aloha opened the doors to these relationships that enabled me to be able to pass my first piece of legislation, like my first six months as a member of Congress from a small state in the minority as a Democrat. And it's because just treating people with respect, treating people with Aloha and saying, yeah, we can disagree even on nine out of 10 things. But on that 10th thing, like, hey, let's talk. Let's get something done. Was that eye opening for you? And did you at that moment in time realize like, hey, not only can I make an impact here, I can do this the way I want to do it. Yes. I can be a kind person and reach out. And I don't have to listen to these people that are entrenched. Exactly. It directly disproved what we were told in those first days as new members of Congress in Washington and further affirmed what I already knew, both from what I learned from Senator Akaka, what I knew from growing up in Hawaii with the Aloha spirit, that this ability to transcend all of this superficial divisiveness, whether it be based on politics, like you said, or religion or race or ethnicity or any of these other things, is what has the power to bring us together as a country.