In the United States of America, according to NBA basketball player LeBron James, sometimes it feels like the country is going back to “some kind of slavery or Jim Crow” under the Trump administration.

He made his comments in Akron, Ohio, during a sit-down with CNN’s Don Lemon on Monday night.

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The 33-year-old, four-time MVP — who recently signed with the Los Angeles Lakers — described himself as one of the “leaders of America.”

In LeBron’s erudite opinion, President Donald Trump “kinda used sports to kinda divide us, and that’s something I can’t relate to.”

He bemoaned what he characterized as America “going backwards” rather than “pushing forward.”

The father of three said racism has always been present in America. But then he took it a step too far. He alleged that racism is currently “in your face” because people somehow feel free to behave reprehensibly as a result of Trump’s presidency.

He then went on to laud the controversial behavior of fellow athletes Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry.

Kaepernick is the football player who began the practice of kneeling during the national anthem. Curry is a Golden State Warriors NBA player who “honored his promise of skipping a visit to Donald Trump’s White House,” as CNN noted.

James cast Kaepernick and Curry’s behavior as peaceful displays of dissent — and contrasted his take with Trump’s. He said the president wrongfully portrayed the stunts as evidence of the decay of American values.

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Don Lemon, abandoning all pretense of neutrality, asked James at one point if he would challenge Trump in a presidential race if it appeared he might otherwise be undefeatable.

The purpose of the interview, supposedly, was to cover James’ laudable “I Promise School” initiative in his hometown of Akron.

Predictably, however, the left-leaning network’s “CNN Tonight” anchor invested a fair amount of time successfully prodding the basketball star to attack President Trump and his administration.

Michele Blood is a Flemington, New Jersey-based freelance writer and a regular contributor to LifeZette.