Tracking GOP officials' shoulder-shrugs about US virus mass deaths

Land of the free, home of the brave...led by the callous.

So I'm beginning to keep a list of what they're saying:

* Senior GOP WI Senator and chair of the Homeland Security Committee Ron Johnson.

Every premature death is a tragedy, but death is an unavoidable part of life. More than 2.8 million die each year — nearly 7,700 a day.

* This was a follow-up to an earlier Johnson shoulder-shrug:

Johnson acknowledged that coronavirus has a far higher fatality rate than the seasonal flu, but said, “getting coronavirus is not a death sentence except for maybe no more than 3.4 percent of our population (and) I think probably far less,” he said.

* Which laid the ground work for Donald Trump's astonishing/not-astonishing meh about what defines "a very good job."

But Trump reasoned that, because 2.2 million Americans could die without any attempt at controlling the virus, “if we can hold that down, as we’re saying, to 100,000 — it’s a horrible number — maybe even less, but to 100,000, so, we have between 100,000 and 200,000, we all together have done a very good job.”

I'd earlier said Johnson had managed to leap-frog Trump for King of the Cruel, but right now I'd say it's a toss-up.