Donald Trump—a man who thinks that owning several now-bankrupt Atlantic City casinos makes him qualified to run the free world—is not exactly a policy guy. He’s not a big ideas guy, either. He’s more like that one conservative uncle everyone has, ranting at Thanksgiving dinner about the border fence, proclaiming that he could do Obama’s job with his eyes closed.
That’s why it comes as no surprise that Trump claims to know nothing about the Black Lives Matter movement. According to ThinkProgress:
Appearing on Fox News over the weekend, Donald Trump admitted to being completely ignorant about the Black Lives Matter movement. "I know nothing about it," the billionaire real estate developer said.
Of course, his lack of knowledge didn’t prevent him from harshly criticizing the effort. Trump said that he’s "seeing lot of bad stuff about it right now."
For any other candidate, this answer would be absurd. How could a presidential candidate not know about why Black Lives Matter exists and where it stems from? How could a presidential candidate not understand the racist police brutality that continually results in dead people of color at the hands of law enforcement?
But this isn’t any other candidate. This is Donald Trump.
For what it’s worth, I’m not convinced that he "knows nothing" about Black Lives Matter. It’s a deflection technique by a guy who knows he can get out of something by claiming total ignorance. I believe he at least knows enough about Black Lives Matter to have an opinion. But it’s literally hard to differentiate between his answer on this and that of an 8-year-old—indifference, vague denouncements, confusion.
This is Trump playing politics, the man known for his straight talk avoiding the question.
But it's not just because he doesn’t want to answer. It’s also because he truly doesn’t care about the issues that are plaguing black and poor people in America. He doesn’t want to talk about racial injustice because it's uncomfortable. After all, what does he care about inequality? He is not running for office to fix inequality. He is running to make sure he and his friends stay rich.
He's not a candidate as much as a one-man circus—unpredictable, chaotic, disturbing. This is his show and he's on stage. And if you’re talking about racial injustice, then you’re not talking about taxes, border fences, or Donald Trump.