Jeff Daniels was on MSNBC yesterday, according to C&L:
Warming up, he went off on the GOP. “That’s why you look at the cowardice of the 15 or so Republicans in the Senate who are quiet. I’m not talking about Jeff Flake or Bob Corker. That’s not courage, that’s making sure you have a job somewhere after politics.”
“Courage is standing up and being a true patriot like we had back in 1776. Who are the heroes going to be?” he asked.
“Is it going to be the Pentagon Papers guy? Who’s the guy going, ‘Here, Washington Post, here’s the unredacted Mueller report.’ I’m waiting for that guy.”
“We’re all waiting for that guy,” Wallace affirmed. Boy howdy, aren’t we all. Are there no patriots out there willing to take the risk?
“We need people like that,” Daniels agreed. “To look at Congress with their politics, if I do this, I can’t do that. You are all worthless to me right now. I need people to stand up and be heroic because democracy is at stake.” [Emphasis in the original]
As others have also noted, there are a number of elected politicians who are, apparently, afraid to take a stand when a crime is being committed by the leader of their party because they want to be re-elected. They defend themselves by saying that they can’t do a whole lot of good if they’re voted out of office, and to some degree that’s true. But if enough of them stood up for the basic principle that the rule of law is more important than anything else, the message will get through. Or to put the more practical spin on it, as soon as the GOP realizes, as they did in the summer of 1974 when Nixon was in extremis, that it was safe (not to mention saving their chances in the mid-terms) to run him over, they did it in short order.
Oh, and yes, someone, somewhere has a copy of the whole Mueller report and I wonder what would happen if an unredacted copy just happened to land at the Washington Post. Or the Palmetto Bay Shoppers Guide.
The problem for so many Republican reps and Senators is that their constituencies don’t give a damn about Trump’s taxes or malefaction or bald-faced lies. They love the guy and will vote for him again because he’s keeping the border safe from an invasion of brown-faced immigrants, is promising to rebuild the closed factories in their town so their jobs will return and takes it to the Man, like a man. He’s got their number and if Democrats can’t figure out an end-run around him in counties in eastern Ohio or Michigan or western Pennsylvania he’ll be back to seek his revenge on any Congressman who challenges him. So our Senate (looking at you McConnell) goes along to get along, keeping their heads down and hoping to forestall a challenge in 2020.