I continue to be impressed with the courage and clarity with which Marco Rubio, the conservative young senator from Florida and Republican presidential candidate, takes on the most difficult challenges facing our nation.

I love his pro-life clarity and his uncompromising stand to defund Planned Parenthood. I appreciate the clear logic with which he explains the folly of our nation making deals and concessions with tyrannical regimes in Iran and Cuba, in the naive hope that they will change their ways.

The other day Rubio appeared on Fox and was asked about the Black Lives Matter movement.

His analysis was on target.

The Black Lives Matter movement is fueled in large part by left-wing donors such as billionaire George Soros, whose Open Society Foundation donated $33 million to groups that engaged in Ferguson-related protests.

But the sentiments (which the Black Lives Matter movement taps into and exploits) are very real, as Rubio accurately points out.

This is a “legitimate issue,” he said. “It is a fact that in the African-American community around this country, there has been for a number of years now a growing resentment toward how the law enforcement and criminal justice system interacts with the community.”

It’s “particularly endemic among young African-American males,” he continued, “that … have a much higher chance of interacting with criminal justice than higher education.”

Rubio spoke with candor and realism about a personal friend of his — a professional black male — who had been stopped “in the last 18 months eight to nine different times” for no reason.

Many blacks will attest to this reality.

A new Gallup poll surveying perceptions on how racial minorities are treated by the police shows a world of difference in how blacks and whites perceive police activity.

Fifty-two percent of blacks, compared to 78 percent of whites, think racial minorities in their areas are treated “fairly” or “very fairly” by the police. Forty-eight percent of blacks compared to 19 percent of whites think the police treat minorities “unfairly” or “very unfairly.”

Black Lives Matter is supported by politically savvy left-wing forces who angle to tap into these very real sentiments, exploit them, create disruption in our political processes and in the nation and institutionalize left-wing, anti-American attitudes and policies.

The mistake of conservatives over many years has been to ignore these very real problems and the destructive sentiments they produce, conceding minority turf to the left.

This has hurt both the country and these communities, as we have expanded government programs and spent trillions of dollars that have not solved problems in minority communities but worsened them. And in the course of it all, political operatives on the left have expanded their own power, wealth and influence.

“(There is) a significant percentage of our population that feels that they are locked out of the promise of this country,” said Rubio. “There are a lot of different reasons … not all have governmental answers.”

The growth of government and moral relativism coincides with growing disillusionment throughout the country.

From 1952 to 1998, according to Gallup, over 80 percent of Americans agreed with the statement that “there’s plenty of opportunity and anyone who works hard can go as far as they want.” By 2013 this was down to 52 percent.

In 1998, 68 percent said the economic system of the country is basically fair. By 2013, this was down to 50 percent.

These trends take a particularly heavy toll in minority communities.

Without faith, hope, a sense of meaning, a sense that personal choices matter and that effort pays off, individuals won’t strive to be free.

The Black Lives Matter movement, which wants to push America to the left, works to convince minorities that these factors for freedom are not available to them.

When a conservative senator such as Marco Rubio gives credence to minority grievances and frustration, he opens the door for delivering the conservative message they need to hear, which provides the only hope for solving their problems.

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