This would be a great time to own stock in plywood. 

According to news reports - including from outlets that studiously downplayed and ignored urban riots all summer - businesses from Los Angeles to Detroit to New York City and Washington DC are boarding up, almost as if a ferocious hurricane threatens the entire country on Election Day.

Oh, there’s a storm coming, all right. And it’s brought to us by the same violent punks who have been rioting ever since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.

They can hardly wait to begin.

Riots started prematurely in Philadelphia last week after police officers shot and killed a man armed with a knife. Because nothing says you care about a dead man quite like emptying the shelves of the local Walmart.

That was a tactical mistake by these uncivilized Biden supporters. (You didn’t think they were voting for Trump, did you?)

After all, Pennsylvania could hold the key to the presidency. Joe Biden’s flip-flops on fracking were already hurting him in the Keystone state and the last thing his campaign needed was a stark reminder to voters that the far-left is revving its engines.

In Portland, where rioting never stopped, the violence picked up again this past weekend, probably because Portlanders tolerated this lawless behavior for months. Good luck getting it under control now.

Election Day violence is not something we expect in our great republic. It’s the stuff of banana republics. 

Yet, it’s here. In Washington, the Fannie Mae offices are closed and boarded up for the week.

George Washington University cautioned students to stock up on meds, food and other essentials in the event they can’t leave their homes or dorms for days after the riots start.

Cities are not bracing for violent mobs because they fear disgruntled Trump voters will begin looting. It’s the left. It’s always the left.

According to a host of news sources, business are boarded in Washington, downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, New York, Chicago, Boston, Portland, Denver and Detroit.

On top of that, retail chains are closing up shop temporarily to protect their merchandise and property. Nordstrom is reportedly shuttering some of its 350 stores this week and so is Tiffany.

Who can blame them? According to The New York Times, which soft-pedaled the summertime riots, those acts of lawlessness were costly.

This year, businesses have already sustained at least $1 billion in insured losses from looting and vandalism largely set off by the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May, according to one estimate cited by the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group.

Nice, huh?

Who are these potential rioters? The same bunch of morons who have been throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails, assaulting police officers, setting vehicle fires and looting stores as if George Floyd’s death was some sort of secret signal to begin The Purge.

Question is, do city officials who are warning of what they euphemistically call “unrest” suspect that the polls are wrong and President Trump is about to win a second term?

Or have they finally figured out that the violent left wants to destroy America and tear down Western Civilization?