WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? As Battle Against Virus Ends, Mayors Confront a New Villain: Criminals. “They are cheerleading the return of office workers to downtowns and encouraging tourists to visit, eager to rejuvenate the economy and build public confidence. But they are also frantically trying to quell a surge of homicides, assaults and carjackings that began during the pandemic and has cast a chill over the recovery.”

This happened because of a deliberate campaign to use George Floyd’s death as a lever to weaken or eliminate policing. And many mayors went along with it, at the cost of their cities’ vitality. The biggest victims, as always, were the poor and working-class citizens of those cities.