It has been utterly breathtaking watching Republicans truly own up to their fetishization of the dollar over people’s lives. They’re living up to their nickname: “party of death.”

There’s the notion that mass death is no big deal.

x DR OZ: "Schools are a very appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing the opening of schools may only cost us 2 to 3%, in terms of total mortality. Any, you know, any life is a life lost, but ... that might be a tradeoff some folks would consider." Ã°ÂÂÂ³ pic.twitter.com/aifMeKTsIv — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 16, 2020

Of course, 2%-3% of the United State’s population of 328 million is between 6.6 and 9.8. million. Some folks might definitely consider that not a big deal, but they’re all either on Fox News or watching it.

There’s the idea that old people were going to die anyway, so no biggie. Like conservative gasbag Bill O’Reilly on, there he is again, Sean Hannity’s show: “Many people who are dying, both here and around the world, were on their last legs anyway," the a-hole said. "And I don’t want to sound callous about that." I’m sure Skylar up above, aged 5, was on her last leg anyway, right?

There was the effort to argue that COVID-19 is just like the flu, so people dying from this are nothing special.

x The 2009 swine flu infected 1.4 Billion people around the world, and killed 575,000 people.



There was no media panic, and societies did not shut down. #Coronavirus has infected less than 468,000 people, and killed 22,000 going into April.



Just a little perspective. — Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) March 26, 2020

Two weeks later, the new coronavirus has infected 2.4 million and killed 167,000 worldwide, over 40,000 in the United States and rising rapidly despite the draconian measures other governments have put in place to slow its spread. The 2009 swine flu wishes it was that transmittable and deadly! But hey, other people people died from other things, so who cares that people are dying over this thing, right? Certainly not impeached president Donald Trump.

x Here's Trump's response yesterday to a reporter bringing up that more than 40,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. https://t.co/NpZ4MTwMZi pic.twitter.com/w6dyLL1vDp — Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) April 20, 2020

Trump doesn’t give a shit. He can’t even muster the barest pretense of humanity, of regret, of sadness, of empathy. And if he doesn’t care, his supporters certainly won’t care. This is the conservative mindset:

Sadly WAY out of date, but still accurate.

Of course, the party of death doesn’t need COVID-19 to portray its lack of give-a-shit over death. There’s conservative hostility toward universal health care, despite the mass layoffs that are exposing the problem with employer-based health care. And of course, there’s the fetishization of weapons of mass destruction, which means they care more about nuts having guns—and lots of them—than they do about the children being mowed down by those weapons.

And of course, there’s Trump’s elimination of the pandemic preparedness task force, and massive cuts to FEMA and the CDC—all of which conspired to make it impossible for the government to adequately respond to the pandemic. Because why should Trump and the Republicans spend money on lifesaving programs when there are billionaires waiting for their tax cuts?

We know what their agenda is, and it has nothing to do with “life.”

But as conservatives push their “open everything back up” plan in the face of the scientific and medical evidence against it, let it be confirmed, once and for all, that one party cares about people’s lives, and the other couldn’t give two shits as long as Chick-Fil-A is open.

One party is getting people killed by the tens of thousands; the other is desperately trying to save everyone’s lives. Because, believe it or not, death is now a partisan issue, as Republicans make common cause with a deadly pathogen ravaging our population.

x I mean you have to admit it's hilarious that the people who have spent their entire lives stockpiling beans & ammo and publishing newsletters about preparing to shelter in place during a global crisis are the ones having meltdowns because they can't go to the cheesecake factory. — Bill Marx for Congress (@BillforPA14) April 20, 2020

Conservatives prepared for the commie invasion. A deadly disease that has poked holes in the entirety of conservative ideology wasn’t in the cards.

And just like Trump made a mockery of supposed conservative fealty to “national defense” and “family values,” this pandemic has exposed the whole “party of life” nonsense as just that.

Skylar Herbert, 5, died because Donald Trump didn’t prepare for a crisis everyone (including his own government) saw coming when it was still months away. Unfortunately for her, she was already born, and that means conservatives don’t need to pretend to care about her life anymore.