In politics and the presidential election, late courage is no better than none | Helen Ubiñas

Well, now, look who finally made it to the party.

After perfecting his disappearing act with voters he’s ducked for years, Sen. Pat Toomey materialized on national TV this week with what appeared to be remnants of his long-lost spine.

“The president’s allegations of large-scale fraud and theft of the election are just not substantiated,” Toomey told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie on Friday. “I’m not aware of any significant wrongdoing here.”

Somebody give this guy a medal.

Actually, we might need to buy those in bulk at the rate politicians who joined the Cult of Trump will begin to run from the dumpster fire they’ve helped stoke for four years.

Shortly after Donald Trump delivered a televised statement Thursday accusing election officials of intentionally miscounting ballots, former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum predicted that “no Republican elected official is going to stand behind that statement. None of them will.”

No surprise he wildly underestimated the shamelessness among his peers — plenty are still sticking by their guy.

Self-preservation or bust, baby.

Plus, it’s always easier for people to speak up when they’re scrambling to land on the winning side or when they think they don’t have anything to lose — Toomey announced last month that he won’t run for reelection or for Pennsylvania governor.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: There is nothing heroic about speaking up when it’s safe to do so. When only your future (or paycheck or relevancy or reelection) depends on it.

Late courage is no better than none at all.

And you definitely don’t get to claim any of the hard-earned victories or enjoy any of the celebrations that in Philly went on for 12 hours Thursday outside the Convention Center, where mail ballots were still being counted, and continued on Friday as Joe Biden took the lead.

Look, I like a party as much as the next person, and I don’t want to be a buzzkill, but before we get too carried away with the celebration, I want to make sure that no matter how this goes, we not only remember, but we never forget, that we would not have gotten this far without people who are routinely made invisible in this country.

Black voters in Michigan.

Black women.

Latinos, immigrants, and children of immigrants in Arizona.

Black women.

Grassroots organizers in Georgia and Philadelphia and Nevada.

Everyday people who keep proving that they love this country more than it loves them back, and who after putting in the work get overshadowed and erased by folks who jump to the front of the line to take credit.

That includes journalists who wasted no time congratulating themselves and one another when the networks pulled away from Trump’s news conference where he did what he’s done for four long years.

On NBC, Lester Holt told his audience: “We are watching President Trump speaking live from the White House and we have to interrupt here because the president made a number of false statements.”

Actually, Lester, he lied — again.

It’s hard not to imagine how things might have been different had we called it what it was from the very beginning — lies, racism, hate — if we were less beholden to an office and the appearance of professionalism and civility and more to our fellow Americans who suffered the consequences.

Individually, there have been many reporters who have long been roaring truth to power — shout-out to Yamiche Alcindor from PBS NewsHour — while their peers too often mumbled. But collectively, we failed, and any suggestion otherwise isn’t just BS, it means that we didn’t learn our lesson, and worse, we aren’t ready for what comes next. Because even when Trump is gone, the damage isn’t miraculously undone.

It’s why I keep harping on the enablers: those who co-signed and coddled and cowered to Trump and his administration.

That includes the social media platforms that suddenly know how to flag misinformation. And those who are allowed various versions of forgive-and-forget to get reelected, to get big book deals or cushy positions as pundits, and to take the spotlight and the mic from those who saved us — again.