A Trump history lesson for young voters

With the presidential race virtually tied just a week before Election Day, perhaps the most astonishing poll numbers so far are the ones buried in the middle of the surveys that show how many young Black and Latino men think former President Donald Trump seems to be their kind of guy.

Among the most astonished should be Trump, himself. After all, having been born into riches, this grandson of a German immigrant has been running media massaging schemes for decades to make sure Americans would suspect and fear those young Black and Latino men who weren’t even born when he began his populist game plan.

Today’s young voters probably remember that June day in 2015 when Donald and Melania glided down their gilded escalator and inaugurated Trump’s era of presidential showmanship. And they have certainly heard Trump’s populist demonization of illegal Latino immigrants as criminals, drug dealers and rapists — and his birther attacks on former President Barack Obama.

But remember: Today’s 18-year-old voters were just grade school children that day. And those young men may still be enamored of Trump’s macho, sports-guy, swaggering, rapper-politics ways.

So now we’re going to take today’s young Black and Latino male voters back to the era of their parents — 1989. That’s when Trump chose to come out by launching himself into what has become his unique style of race-based demonization politics. But first, we need to check out the latest presidential poll news for a very related development.

The University of Chicago’s GenForward Survey just released a poll that shows Trump doing surprisingly well among young Black men. So let’s check out the numbers — and then discover why this is so surprising in Trump’s case.

The poll showed that a sizable 26% of men between 18 and 40 years old, said they will vote for Trump — twice the 12% of the votes he got from young Black women. In 2020, Joe Biden received 90% of the overall Black vote. Among young Latinos in that age bracket, Trump got 44% (slightly more than the 38% he got in 2020).

Now let’s show today’s young Black and Latino voters the sensationalistic way Trump got himself involved with their communities way back in 1989.

On April 19, 1989, a 28-year-old white woman was jogging in New York City’s Central Park — and was attacked, smashed with a rock and raped. She survived, comatose and remembered nothing of the attack. That same night, a large group of 30 East Harlem youths pelted cars with rocks, mugged people — and police arrested four Blacks and one Latino, aged 14 to 16 for that. Police interrogated them separately about the jogger’s rape. Each denied committing crimes, but became scared and said the others were there. Police charged the Central Park Five with raping the jogger even though no DNA evidence implicated them.

Two weeks later — before any trial and while the woman was still comatose — Trump took out four full page newspaper ads urging New York to reinstate its death penalty and execute the woman’s attackers:

"Bring Back The Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!"

"… Mayor (Edward) Koch has stated that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts. I do not think so. I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes. They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence.… I want them to be afraid.…(Signed) Donald J. Trump"

New York became a city inflamed with rage. Would Trump have bought the same ad demanding execution if those Black and Latino teens had been white? We’ll never know. The Central Park Five teenagers were tried, convicted and imprisoned. The state renewed its death penalty in 1995.

But in 2002, a serial rapist who was already in jail for other rape charges confessed that he also raped the Central Park jogger. A recheck of the DNA found on her was indeed the serial rapist’s. After years in jail, four Blacks and one Latino who had been wrongly convicted and imprisoned were freed. In 2007, New York’s death penalty was rescinded once again, without having ever been used. The Central Park Five were exonerated. Forever shameless, Trump never apologized to them. The city settled with them for having wrongfully convicted and imprisoned them.

Today, one member of the Central Park Five, who was just 15 when Trump demanded that he be executed for a crime he never committed, has a new title. He is New York City Councilman Yusef Salam.

His pretrial ad-buying accuser has two old titles: 45th president of the United States and convicted felon. Perhaps next week, we’ll see if a surprisingly large number of votes from young Black and Latino men help Trump get one more.

Martin Schram, an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service, is a veteran Washington journalist, author and TV documentary executive. Readers may send him email at martin.schram@gmail.com.