There’s a lot we should have learned about Donald Trump that, in the hurricane of his ugliness, we just overlooked or forgot. A lot of that ugliness happened in the aftermath of the rape of a jogger in Central Park in 1989. His playbook hasn’t changed: he relies on hate, as he admitted in a contemporaneous interview.
Dr. Yusef Salaam, wrongly convicted as one of the Central Park Five in an infamous case when he was just 15 years old, spent eight years in prison for a crime he did not commit. A then-high society real estate developer, Donald Trump called for all five men to be executed; after their exoneration, Trump has not apologized for his statements, instead saying their jail time was just because they had surely done something that merited prison. (He later modified that to mean they all signed confessions, each of which was later revealed to have been coerced by police.)
Salaam is making the rounds on media lately because Trump is expected to be arraigned in the same courthouse where Salaam and his fellow victims of injustice were arraigned. When news of Trump’s indictment hit the media, Salaam released a one-word statement: “Karma.”
In the video above, Salaam notes that Trump is crying that he is being unjustly persecuted by a biased and corrupt justice system. Salaam points out that Trump–and frankly all conservatives–mocked the efforts of Black Americans to the corruption inherent in the system. Now Trump is shedding crocodile tears that he’s, once again, a victim.
Of course, Trump’s wrong: he’s been shown explicit deference in the various cases he’s involved in, far more than any average defendant. The fact that he is being allowed to surrender himself, without being arrested and handcuffed, on Tuesday is itself a privilege afforded to a small percentage of criminal defendants.
Part of this is, of course, because he is a former president and there are, rightly or wrongly, some customary courtesies provided to the handful of men who previously occupied the White House. Trump is also rich and white, and it’s a little difficult to believe the American justice system’s bias against rich white men has been big problem historically. Of course, for Trump, it will be “the biggest, worstest bias in history. Worse than anyone. They didn’t even treat Manson this badly,” he’ll declare during some future rally at a farm field in Missouri.
Trump’s self-declared victimization isn’t new. And neither is Trump’s violent rhetoric: Trump rallied New Yorkers to condemn the five suspects, taking a full page ad in newspapers calling for their execution prior to the trial. (Obviously, we shouldn’t rush to judgment on Trump’s guilt for financial fraud, but feel free to execute five teenagers pre-trial.). Trump fed the rage of angry New Yorkers who wanted vengeance on the five boys–and the Black community white New Yorkers deemed lawless.
It was Trump’s first time tasting the power of the mob. Largely a media character who dabbled in real estate–his father was running the Trump real estate company at the time–Trump was known in New York more for his lavish playboy lifestyle than for any substantive political or even business successes. His casinos in Atlantic City were failing; his casinos would start declaring bankruptcy in two years. He needed something to make people think he was still powerful. Perhaps more relevant: his ego demanded he needed to be important.
Trump leverage the anger, the hatred of the white population in 1989, just as he did in 2016. He made them all feel like victims, and he did so to stoke their hatred. This isn’t speculation; Trump said it in a 1989 interview with Larry King on CNN, praising his ability to rally people–and likely manipulating numbers as he continues to do.
“I have never done anything that’s caused a more positive stir. I’ve had 15,000 — 15,000 — letters in the last week and a half,” Trump told the iconic interviewer. “I don’t know of more than two or three that were negative out of 15,000. The ad’s basically very strong and vocal, they are saying bring back law and order. And I’m not just referring to New York, I’m referring to everything.”
More to the point, Trump admits to leveraging hatred to get crowds motivated to change: “I had some women the other day stick a microphone in my face from one of the major networks, ‘but don’t you have compassion for these young men? That raped and beat and mugged and everything else this wonderful women,’” Do I have hatred for them? And I said, look this woman was raped, mugged, and thrown off a building – thrown off a building on top of everything else. She’s got some major problems to put it mildly. I said, ‘Of course I hate these people and let’s all hate these people because maybe hate is what we need if we’re gonna get something done.’”
With his success promoting himself by stoking hate and self-victimization, Trump discovered the formula that would propel him to the White House and ultimately to a Manhattan arraignment.