Gaping black holes of smashed store windows look out on America’s streets like the eyes of some giant memento mori goading the nation with the horror of our current crises. These eyes are quickly covered with boards, but there is no concealing the businesses ruined, livelihoods trashed or incinerated, and, in many areas, the hopes of a thriving community vaporized.

Mob violence, some of it political and revolutionary, some of it merely criminally acquisitive, has hit an economy already reeling from the pandemic shutdown like a cruel blow upon a dark and smarting bruise.