Connelly: Where are Republicans to confront crazy Trump behavior?

Sen. Barry Goldwater went to the White House and told President Nixon it was time for him to go. (Getty Images) Sen. Barry Goldwater went to the White House and told President Nixon it was time for him to go. (Getty Images) Image 1 of / 11 Caption Close Connelly: Where are Republicans to confront crazy Trump behavior? 1 / 11 Back to Gallery

Here's one more Republican officeholder who could hide in a field of stubble. The newspaper headline Friday:

"Sen. Ben Sasse, Vocal Trump Critic, Goes Mum After President's Endorsement."

The Nebraska senator, a former college president, has been facing a Trump ditto head in next year's primary. The endorsement from our 45th president likely assures his reelection. The price: Silence and submissiveness.

I've come to wonder if officeholders in the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower have put their manhood in blind trust. They are loathe to speak out, even at infantile behavior like canceling the Denmark visit -- the Danes wouldn't sell Greenland -- or the sharpie map of a hurricane's path to hit Alabama.

RELATED: Connelly: Good riddance Schultz. Now will Trump be the next billionaire to go?

Across the Pond, principled folk in Britain's Conservative Party stood up to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and voted to block a cold turkey Brexit from the European Union.

They knew that Boris would throw them out of the party, which he did with 21 MPs. But principal, and deep potential economic hurt, were at stake. In parliamentary tradition, if you disagree with a government of your party, you quit.

The "rebels" have included Jo Johnson, Boris' brother; Winston Churchill's grandson Nicholas Soames; Kenneth Clarke, longest serving member in the House of Commons; Amber Rudd, a member of Johnson's cabinet; and Philip Hammond, former chancellor of the exchequer (i.e. Britain's finance minister).

Where are their counterparts this side of the Atlantic? Who will tell the emperor he is acting like a vindictive ass, betraying conservative principles (free trade) and wrecking his party's future in an increasingly diverse, multicultural nation?

Only old guys out of office, onetime Massachusetts Gov. William Weld and defeated House members Mark Sanford and Joe Walsh, have challenged Trump.

In 1974, Republicans of stature -- Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott and Sen. Barry Goldwater -- called out Nixon's conduct and went to the White House with a message that the 37th President was through.

Goldwater had once supported Nixon, but the lies and cover ups disgusted him. Everything Nixon said, in Barry's salty language, was "a bucket of s**t." Hugh Scott was disgusted by gutter talk in the Nixon tapes.

RELATED: Connelly: Trump is a drag on Republicans -- national poll

In this Washington, Attorney General Slade Gorton called for Nixon's resignation in a 1973 speech to the Seattle Rotary Club, as the Watergate scandal unfolded. U.S. Rep. Joel Pritchard was a Nixon critic.

What of today? Gorton and ex-Gov. Dan Evans, in their 90s, are still with us. Neither of these men, symbols of when Republicans used to win statewide races, will vote to reelect Trump in 2020. Gubernatorial candidate Bill Bryant did not vote for him in 2016, and has walked Olympic beaches to protest administration plans for offshore oil leases.

In office, however, Republicans quake at the threat of Trump's vengeance and being "primaried" by a Trump backer.

Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., has called for a DACA settlement that will allow young "Dreamers" to get on with their lives in America. He fell in line, however, on a key House vote. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., was celebrating Trump's evisceration of the Clean Water Act last week.

There are other Sasses.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, in 2016 described Trump as "the world's biggest jackass" and a "race-baiting xenophobic bigot." Three years later, he is golfing with Trump and greasing the administration's packing of federal courts with right-wing extremists.

I seem to remember when Graham was a big buddy of Sen. John McCain . . . yes, the same man whose Vietnam War heroism was slandered by Trump, whose nastiness has not been stilled even by McCain's death.

John McCain in 2008 ran for President on the slogan: "Country First."

What do Ben Sasse and Lindsey Graham stand for? Reelection.