Don King: 'All Lives Matter Is a Diversion'

In an interview with PJ Media on the Republican National Convention floor on Tuesday, boxing promoter Don King shared his surprising views of the Black Lives Matter movement. He seemed to be all over the board, hitting on America’s history of racism, his friendship with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and his full-throated support for Donald Trump.

When it comes to the Black Lives Matter movement, King admitted that “the natural response would say All Lives Matter, but that’s a diversion.” He admitted that “my friend” Giuliani calls the movement racist, but then police were shot and the Blue Lives Matter slogan emerged.

“Is that a racist term?” King asked. Blue Lives Matter cannot be considered racist, so the debate does not boil down to racial lines — it breaks down along support or mistrust for police.

“You can’t use short term slogans because people don’t understand and they twist them around,” the boxing promoter explained. In our hashtag culture, “we treat the effects, not the cause. You’ve got to get to the cause.”

King argued that America’s emotionally-charged partisan politics entrench the same corrupt system by twisting issues into an us-verses-them paradigm, rather than dealing with the real issue at hand.

Liberals hear “Black Lives Matter” and see blacks being mistreated by police, and have a huge arm of the media creating an echo chamber on that message. Conservatives hear “Black Lives Matter” and think of attacks on police, the brave men and women who lay their lives on the line and have gotten killed indiscriminately for doing so.

“The system is so magnificent — it reinvents itself so fast, rebrands itself, so that you would be able to think it advocated whatever cause you want it to be without them accepting any blame!” In other words, both the left and the right twist narratives to demonize the other side, and the real causes underlying the crisis go unsolved.

Next Page: So how will Donald Trump help solve these deep problems?

King did not say Donald Trump is the ultimate solution for America’s problems, but that he would stop “the system” and its ability to shirk responsibility for solving key problems.

“Donald Trump will call them out. He can’t change it, but he can tell on them, so you won’t be under that illusion of a nice guy smiling in your face when he backstabs you,” the boxing celebrity explained. Trump will pull the wool off of our eyes, so we can see issues as they are and address them in the way they need to be addressed.

This is a nuanced version of the argument that Trump is an effective president because he was a businessman. King does not claim that The Donald had business success which will easily translate into the political arena. Instead, he says that this candidate doesn’t view issues in the partisan prism that hides corruption and stagnation.

For instance, King praised The Donald for exposing the lie that people only dislike President Barack Obama because he is black. Too many liberals dismiss the Tea Partiers as racist for this reason, but that movement grew in opposition to a specific policy (Obamacare), and how it was passed into law. Some racists may be fellow travelers, but that was not the movement’s driving force.

There is some evidence to hope that Trump’s approach will shake things up in Washington. He is arguably not a conservative, but he has shown the ability to attack liberal ideas with simple, if vulgar, responses. His blustering manner seems to communicate his ideas better than direct speeches, and breathless media coverage actually bolsters his brand, even while aiming to destroy it.

This is not to say he is an ideal candidate (many conservatives still hate him), but Trump does have the benefit of shaking things up. King emphasized that the Republican Party did not want him, even going so far as launching “the diabolical scheme” of freeing delegates at the convention.

“Donald Trump is the will of the people. The Democrats don’t want him, the Republicans don’t want him,” King declared. He will shake up the system and reveal America’s fundamental struggles in a new light.