No, Looting Is Not Akin to Overthrowing the Government

Lev Radin/Pacific Press/ZUMA

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This is probably pointless, but I am already sick to death of right wingers pretending that liberals are hypocrites for denouncing Wednesday’s violence at the same time that some of them excused the violence during the BLM protests over the summer.

If you were one of those liberals who looked the other way at the summer violence, then shame on you. Ransackings and beatings are pretty obviously things that should be condemned, regardless of whether they come from cops, looters, or protesters.

But it was unplanned, unled, and commonplace. It bears no comparison to this week’s events. This week’s rioters were acting at the behest of the president of the United States, who wanted them to overturn the results of a legal election and keep him in power. And it was defended not by miscellaneous bloggers and activists, but by members of Congress who thought it was a great idea to back the president in his attempt to keep power via violence.

It is sophistry of the first order to pretend that these two things have the slightest bit in common. The former is unfortunate but has no long-term impact at all. The latter is a direct assault on the workings of democracy by the leader of that democracy. Anyone who can’t tell them apart is either a cretin, a demagogue, or an insurrectionary. Take your pick.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

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So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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