“In war, truth is the first casualty.” —ancient Athenian playwright Aeschylus

The “progressive” Left is at war with America. And in the leftists’ never-ending quest for power by any means necessary, truth has indeed become the first casualty. Rather than presenting America with the facts, media, academia, Hollywood, virtue-signaling corporations, and cowardly Democrat politicians abide the destruction of their own cities, hundreds of businesses (many minority-owned), and the Rule of Law itself.

The “fundamental transformation of the United States” demands nothing less.

Are there bad cops? Undoubtedly. In a nation of 329 million people, there are bad apples in virtually every walk of life. And since 9/11, one could argue that police forces have become unnecessarily militarized.

Yet the notion that police forces are afflicted with institutional or systemic racism is a blatant lie. A nationwide study published last year assessed hundreds of police shootings since 2015. It revealed that 55% of all people fatally shot in America by the police are white, more than double the 27% of black and 19% of Hispanic individuals.

In 2019, police officers fatally shot 1,004 people. Most of them were armed and/or otherwise dangerous. Black Americans comprised approximately a quarter of that total (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015.

What about the fact that black Americans are only 13% of the population? Between 1980 and 2008, blacks committed 52% of the nation’s homicides. In 2018, the latest year of available data, black Americans still comprised 53% of the nation’s known homicide offenders and committed approximately 60% of the nation’s robberies. Given those numbers, blacks being confronted by cops is going to happen more often.

As for unarmed people shot by cops, a Washington Post database reveals police fatally shot nine unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019, down from 38 and 32, respectively, in 2015. In 2018, again the last year of available data, there were 7,407 black homicide victims in the United States. Assuming a similar total last year, the nine unarmed men killed in police shootings would represent just 0.1% of black homicides.

In reality, those most likely to kill blacks are other blacks: According to 2018 FBI stats, black Americans are more than 11 times likelier to be murdered by members of their own race than whites or anyone else.

These facts are rarely disseminated because they would be utterly inimical to a revolutionary Left that senses its moment is at hand. A revolutionary Left that undergirds that revolution with absurd no-bail-release policies that have come to fruition in New York City, where those arrested for arson, grand larceny, resisting arrest, or vehicular assault were released back to the streets, often within hours. In Washington, DC, most arrested for felony rioting had those charges reduced before being freed. In St. Louis, all 36 individuals arrested for rioting, looting, and arson were released — with no charges at all.

Thus, many of these accused criminals now have the opportunity to pillage their respective cities — again.

Yet even that doesn’t satisfy the leftist mob. In what is arguably the most blatant attempt to destroy our constitutional republic, progressive politicians, celebrities, the ACLU, and the media now insist the only solution to nonexistent institutional police racism … is to defund police departments altogether.

We already know what fully funded but politically intimidated police forces do. After the Freddie Gray riots in Baltimore, police stopped being proactive in minority neighborhoods. Homicide rates skyrocketed and police clearance rates — as in suspects being arrested, charged, or turned over to a court — plummeted. In short, people are literally getting away with murder. And just like most other Democrat-controlled cities, black Americans remain the most prevalent victims.

Yet if this policy prevails, what will ostensibly occupy the ensuing power vacuum? A “transformative new model of public safety,” according to Minneapolis City Council president Lisa Bender. Community-based initiatives “that can produce real safety and security without the violence and racism inherent in the criminal justice system,” states The Nation columnist Alex S. Vitale.

Really? Who will patrol the streets? Hawk Newsome, chairman of the Black Lives Matter New York chapter, announced his organization will launch an armed branch of “peace officers.” “We pattern ourselves after the Black Panthers, after the Nation of Islam, we believe that we need an arm to defend ourselves,” Newsome explained. “We will build and train peace officers to keep the peace in our communities, to defend our communities, to keep our communities safe.”

Will whites, Asians, Hispanics, and others create similar race- or ethnic-based organizations? How about the “LGBTQ” community? Will each entity declare what turf it controls and what criminal statutes are still, or no longer, enforceable? Who will investigate everything from murder and rape to arson and robbery, along with everything in between? If a black-owned business is torched by a black arsonist, who will be the alleged victim of “institutionalized racism”?

Such anarchic insanity is only possible in the tribal environment the American Left sees as its most viable path to unassailable power. Yet Americans might consider the uncomfortable reality that absent the police, the most viable and organized “enforcement” presence in most big cities is heavily armed street gangs.

Are Americans ready to emulate Mexico, where murderous drug cartels call the shots? “The truth is all these people — the elected and the mob — take comfort in knowing the police are there when they need them,” writes columnist Derek Hunter. “When something happens to them, even the most violent trust-fund ANTIFA mutant liberal will call for them.”

No one made that clearer than NBA player Chris Martin Palmer, who went from tweeting “Burn that s—t down. Burn in all down,” to “get these animals TF out of my neighborhood” when “protesters” massed in front of his home.

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket,” stated American philosopher Eric Hoffer. No other quote better describes the trajectory of the civil-rights movement from the days of Martin Luther King’s inspirational leadership to the rank hucksterism currently demonstrated by the likes of Al Sharpton and countless other divisive demagogues.

All of whom maximize racial discord for power and profit.

Such demagoguery has tragic consequences. In St. Louis, retired black police captain David Dorn, 77, was shot and killed by looters. His death was live-streamed on Facebook. In Oakland, California, black federal officer Patrick Underwood, 53, was murdered while attempting to keep the peace. Hundreds of other officers, of every ethnicity, have been injured, some quite seriously.

In other words, hundreds of police officers have risked their lives to protect the public — even when most know decisions made in split seconds will often be judged in leisure by agenda-driven hacks.

Will the phalanx of supposedly enlightened social workers, psychiatrists, and community organizers with whom progressives would replace police forces step into that breach?

Don’t bet on it. “We can now see, with perfect vision, what the Democrats want for us should they ever take power,” warns columnist Curtis Ellis. “What they call ‘new normal’ is an upside-down world.”

Post-apocalyptic is more like it.