The Democrats have always been the Party of Free Stuff, but this is getting ridiculous.

On Tuesday night in Larry Krasner’s lawless Philadelphia, a mob of young people finished their homework and then got together for an evening of lighthearted looting. As the New York Post reports: “The unruly crowd outnumbered responding officers as they went from store to store in Center City, lifting merchandise and stuffing it in large plastic bags. The shoplifters hit a Foot Locker and Apple store near 15th and Chestnut streets as well as a Lululemon in Rittenhouse Square and are accused of assaulting a security guard at the shoe store.”

We note that the looting was lighthearted as opposed to heavyhearted, which would’ve been the case if the mob (or what Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson would call “a large gathering”) were doing so in protest of the decision by a local judge to drop all charges against a Philadelphia cop who shot 27-year-old Eddie Irizarry through his rolled-up car window during a traffic stop on August 14. Dullard media had first reported that the looting was an extension of earlier peaceful protests about the Irizarry case. It wasn’t. This was pure, greedy opportunism.

Just kids having some fun, though.

“I never thought I’d live to see the day in America where looting almost seems to be part of the new normal,” lamented Fox News’s Laura Ingraham. “But in Democrat cities, that’s exactly what we have.”

Indeed, this wasn’t a one-off. Unchecked shoplifting is taking its toll across the country. On the same day of the Philly loot-fest, Target announced the closure of nine stores in four lawless leftist enclaves — three in Portland, three in greater San Francisco, two in Seattle, and one in New York City. Why? Because, as Target’s press release makes clear, these stores have become too costly and dangerous to operate:

In this case, we cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance. We know that our stores serve an important role in their communities, but we can only be successful if the working and shopping environment is safe for all.

Before making this decision, we invested heavily in strategies to prevent and stop theft and organized retail crime in our stores, such as adding more security team members, using third-party guard services, and implementing theft-deterrent tools across our business. Despite our efforts, unfortunately, we continue to face fundamental challenges to operating these stores safely and successfully.

“Looting is just one more way of redistributing the wealth,” as Ingraham rightly put it, “a hands-on way of leveling the playing field.” And this isn’t something new. Back in August 2020, during the Democrats’ “Summer of Love Rage” George Floyd riots, one young black female activist put it this way to WFLD in Chicago: “I don’t care if somebody decides to loot a Gucci, or a Macy’s, or a Nike, because that makes sure that that person eats. That makes sure that that person has clothes. That makes sure that that person can make some kind of money because this city obviously doesn’t care about them. Not only that, that’s reparations.”

And there you have it: reparations by other means. Thus, when our Democrat-run big cities allow young black people to mob up and steal TVs and designer purses and overpriced pairs of sneakers, they’re really just making reparations by other means. This is America’s restitution for the scourges of slavery, and segregation, and Jim Crow — and the rest of us are footing the bill. Remember: Businesses don’t pay taxes, nor do they pay reparations. They pass these costs on to the end consumer.

If you haven’t yet witnessed this sort of thing, stand by. Unless these soft-on-crime Democrat municipalities start taking law enforcement seriously, looting is likely coming to a city near you.