100,000

The news of the last couple days included the story of a police officer in Minneapolis who put his knee on the neck of a black man. The man complained about not being able to breathe, then died. The officer and his partners were fired. Even so, there were protests by black people in the city. A couple tweets on the issue:

Bernice King (the daughter of MLK) included two photos in her tweet, one of the above incident (which is why I recommend not looking). The other of Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem at a football game. Tweeted King:

If you’re unbothered or mildly bothered by the 1st knee, but outraged by the 2nd, then, in my father’s words, you’re “more devoted to order than to justice.” And more passionate about an anthem that supposedly symbolizes freedom than you are about a Black man’s freedom to live.

By order she doesn’t mean a smoothly running society. She means societal hierarchy.

Maurice Moe Mitchell, national director for Working Families, tweeted:

We no longer need to engage in hypothetical "what ifs."

White protestors, armed with rifles, aggressively confront the police to defend their right to a speedy haircut.

Nothing.

Unarmed Black protestors congregating at the site of a police murder.

Tear gas and riot police.

Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reviewed how the nasty guy has been campaigning. He declared war on Michigan and Nevada for their efforts towards vote by mail. He declared war on older voters by saying they were expendable in his efforts to restart the economy. He declared war on wearing masks, turning a public health issue into a culture war. Eleveld concluded:

No campaign manager would ever tell their candidate to go to war with the leaders of critical swing states, key voting blocs, or anyone who’s a public health enthusiast.

Trump isn't campaigning to win, he's campaigning to divide the country against itself in every possible way. It's entirely possible that Trump's entire strategy at this point is to foment enough discord and doubt that he can successfully call the 2020 results into question if they don't go his way. Because frankly, there's no other possible explanation for his behavior other than he's entirely off his rocker. But as long as we’re at it, let's not count that one out either.

We’ve seen many examples of what the nasty guy, the GOP, and their financial backers think of us, because every so often they actually say it. Here’s another one.

White House economic advisor spoke with CNN’s Dana Bash on *State of the Union*. He said, in part, “Our human capital stock is ready to get back to work.”

Yes, there was outrage over that term. I’ll quote only the tweet from Ibram X. Kendi:

This is jarring because my enslaved ancestors were literally human capital stock. No matter what, they were always told to go back to work. This could be 1820.

NPR reported on All Things Considered that the US death toll attributed to COVID-19 has passed 100,000. There are surely many more not in that count. As others have said death has become so meaningless that we hit such a horrific milestone and the loudest voices can only say, “But the economy…”

Remember the dead.