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The day after the Aug. 13 primary elections, I posted this for Daily Kos regarding Angela Aulani Kaaihue’s shocking victory in the Republican primary election in Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District (“Hawaii GOP Nominates Despicable Human For Congress Against Tulsi Gabbard”).

Kaaihue has become more unhinged and erratic now that more news organizations are focusing on her candidacy. This prompted the Republican Party state chair, Fritz Rohlfing, to release a statement Friday disavowing her candidacy, outright. But is it too late?

The answer is yes. Rohlfing’s statement is disingenuous, and Kaaihue’s candidacy is a reflection of the entire party, a party of irrational anger and bigotry.

Kaaihue has been making these remarks long before primary election night and long before the week after the primary elections. In the lead up to her victory in the primary, she mocked Congressman Mark Takai’s battle with cancer, degraded every religion (other than Christianity) and made racist remarks against Japanese Americans.

When Hawaii News Now first broke the news on her offensive campaign posters mocking Takai, it angered many and pushed Rohlfing to speak out. The sad part is that none of her previous comments and actions deserved a response from him or the party. HNN only asked about the offensive posters — which are enough to disavow her candidacy as a whole — not other matters in her past.

Kaaihue’s comments, no matter how offensive they may seem, tend to reflect a segment of  both the Hawaii GOP and the national GOP. A little over a year ago, for instance, many wrote off the candidacy of Donald Trump as a joke following his inflammatory statements on Muslims, Mexicans and immigrants. Fast-forward to today, and his candidacy is going strong, including in Hawaii, where 43 percent of Republican voters made him the presidential choice of the party earlier this year. Should we be surprised, then, that , about 38 percent of the GOP votes cast in her primary?

Trump and Kaaihue’s candidacies did not just come from nowhere — they came from years of right-wing racism, sexism, homophobia and religious intolerance focused against President Obama and other consistent Republican targets.

In 2009, the tea party emerged as a new political movement that at first focused primarily on the idea of Americans being overtaxed, staging its first protest on April 15, 2009 — Tax Day.

Forty-three percent of Republican voters made him the presidential choice of Hawaii GOP earlier this year. Should we be surprised, then, that Kaaihue got nearly 7,500 votes, about 38 percent of the GOP votes cast in her primary?

Tax Day has been around for years, prior to the Obama administration, under both Republican and Democratic presidencies. However, something different about the Obama administration triggered a new anti-tax movement, .

Originally the tea party was not associated with the Republican Party in any way. But it soon merged with the party after finding common interests.

The tea party diverted its attention from fiscal responsibility and expanded its platform to hold positions on gun ownership, foreign policy and so-called traditional values. Soon another movement came from the tea party — the birthers, led by Trump, who basically declared a personal war against the president.

The birther movement labeled the president as a foreigner and a Muslim. It requested that Obama do something no other president had ever done, which was to release his birth certificate to prove he was not a foreigner. When the president finally did, it was still not enough for many of them.

It was at that moment that the Republican Party for me ceased to be a political party and became more an organization promoting racism, sexism, homophobia and religious intolerance. The birthers and tea partiers attracted both existing and new Republicans and it is that evolution of the GOP that gave rise to Trump and Kaaihue.

So looking back, I’m not really that shocked by the Kaaihue’s primary win. The harsh reality is that some of her sentiments are similar to those held by others in the Hawaii Republican Party. We saw this everywhere, the signs were all there, whether it was the comment feed of an article written about transgender issues or Trump’s victory in the Hawaii Republican Caucus.

In the Daily Kos piece that I wrote I said that the Republican Party of Hawaii now has the burden to prove whether they will let Kaaihue define who they are and I stand by it. I’m happy that the chair disavowed her. However, they can’t just denounce and disavow one candidate, but support another who holds similar views.

Until the Republican Party disavows Trump, the disavowal of Kaaihue is disingenuous.