Photo taken on March 16, 2020 shows the White House Visitor Center in Washington D.C., the United States. Photo: Xinhua

The death toll of COVID-19 in the US passed 100,000 on Wednesday, the biggest shame for the superpower in more than a century. It reflects the decline of the US political system and the government's blatant dereliction of duty. But no officials were jailed or sacked. 

President Trump only posted a perfunctory tweet the next morning, showing "sympathy and love."The US stocks closed higher Wednesday, hours before the death toll reached 100,000. The mainstream media in the US highlighted the number, but their voices were largely muted amid the nation's hectic schedule. On the whole, that country passed through the special point of 100,000 deaths fairly peacefully, and it appeared politically indifferent.

President Trump had previously predicted that only 50,000 or 60,000 people would die in the US, and then said 70,000 or 80,000 would die. His latest claim is that the deaths of 100,000 people were the result of the good work of his government. Because otherwise one or two million people could have died in the US. 

The focus of the US government over the past two days and the issues supported by both parties in Congress are attacks on China's national security legislation for Hong Kong. They are busy sanctioning China. At a time when there is a big human rights loophole in the US, they are full of concern about the "human rights and freedom" in Hong Kong.

The Republican government managed to dominate the US public's attention, making China's enactment of a national security law for Hong Kong a bigger cause than the deaths of 100,000 Americans. It looks like that those senior US officials only have to talk tough to China and prove that they are working hard to sanction China, then they are less responsible for US' failure to fight the pandemic.

What they want is a spark of conflict with China at this point in time, to blind people's eyes, and fool Americans into thinking that the biggest human rights tragedy in the world is happening in Hong Kong, not in the US, where 100,000 people have lost their lives as a result of COVID-19.

The flag of social Darwinism is flying high in the US and humanitarianism like a trophy in a corner, is covered with dust. Let the weak die, let the poor die, and the US today has every reason not to care about them in order to be "great again."

The number of 100,000 is higher than the total number of US soldiers killed in the Korean and Vietnam wars combined. However, since novel coronavirus took the lives of the most voiceless people in the US, their deaths are actually being regarded as "a reasonable price" for the US to get out of its economic plight.

Looking at the US from afar, the Chinese did not realize that the most developed country we had ever looked up to was like this. What is even more surprising is that this has not affected the country's political elite at all in berating China, a country that has successfully protected many more lives, for its "violation" of human rights.

It is not clear whether they are pretending to be hypocritical or they really believe that the death of 100,000 people is a small sin and that China's enactment of a national security law for Hong Kong is a sin that cannot be forgiven. In short, the US has become politically paranoid beyond common sense, that 100,000 lives will not awaken the system's return to truth.

When Washington preaches to the world about human rights and morality, there is no one to point out a fact that is happening. That is: Today's US is the grave of the weak, the old, the poor, and minorities.