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Originally Posted by PaulS
No, he is a sloppy talker and writer. While it doesn't say bring back the death penalty, he mentions the park (and given the timing) any reasonable person would assume that is what he meant.
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There is no need to "assume" what he meant. In the ad, he SPECIFICALLY tied the death penalty to murder. For all other serious crimes that they should be punished and made to suffer.
As in, "I want to hate these muggers and murderers, and
when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes." Or as in, "Those
who would murder our citizens and terrorize New York--bring back the death penalty." (Their is no comma between "citizens" and "and terrorize" so "terrorize" was a result of "murder[ing] our citizens".)
So, he clearly wanted the death penalty to apply to murder. He did not like that murder should be penalized merely with imprisonment. And the other criminals who were at that time (this was just before Giuliani cleaned up the horrific crime problem NY was having) should be made to suffer (not given the death penalty).
And there was no nod toward racism, he said that the New Yorkers who were suffering from the widespread crime in the city at the time were White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian. And did not claim or hint that the criminals were all non-White. The Central Park Five were only a part of the whole, horrific, criminal predation of the city. And they were not convicted of murder. So they would not be his targets for the death penalty.
The claim that he asked for the death penalty for the Five is not found in the ad, nor is it implied. And the ad was not, in the main, merely about the Five. It was about what was happening in the city. The Five, whom he never specifically mentioned, were just part of the problem. The whole situation is what the ad was about, and the death penalty, in the ad, was specifically for murderers.
Way after that event and that ad, there is this attempt to characterize it as racist and calling for the death penalty for five innocent black children (at the time they were convicted, not innocent). Any "reasonable" reading of the ad would not find a claim that Trump called for the death penalty for the Five. Not only that, but he was being very clear in what he was talking about and to whom he was referring. If he had wanted to call for the execution of the Five, he could easily had said so. He was speaking about the overall, terrible crime that was gripping his city at that time. And he lamented that the police were not allowed to pursue crime as they should be, and that the death penalty would be the more proper and effective remedy for murder.
But the claim that he is a racist who wanted to execute five innocent black children is not about being reasonable. It is the typical, incessant, attempt to twist, interpret, conjecture, insinuate, characterize what Trump says and does into proving that Orange Man Bad. And as for him being a sloppy talker and writer, that is true about how he speaks. But writing is not extemporaneous, unscripted speech. His ad was not sloppy, was well and clearly written.