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I agree that he could easily be functioning as a scapegoat mechanism, uniting people who believe "anyone but".

As to being an actual scapegoat, I doubt it: scapegoats are innocent.

He is accused of being a racist (Central Park 5) misogynist ("Grab em") bigot (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX9reO3QnUA#t=16)

We are apparently a long time removed from 'quoniam meos tam suspicione quam crimine iudico carere oportere'.

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Yeah, the central park 5 were innocent but everyone was racist in the 80s if that is the standard. All those poor kids were doing was beating random people, stealing from them, and knocking them out and leaving them for dead to whoever might come along. But they weren't rapists.

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Yes, and Trump was happy to judge before any facts came out (also well before the city settled for $41M), based apparently on (a) what he thought had happened, and (b) how he thought the justice system ought to work; most people in the 80s would not have done that.

lighter: https://www.theonion.com/trump-takes-out-full-page-newspaper...

darker: http://apps.frontline.org/clinton-trump-keys-to-their-charac...

Note that even in Russia, the death penalty theoretically no longer exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_country

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Yes, Trump judged, and about 95% of society at that time did as well.

And the CP5 almost certainly were out there assaulting strangers in the park. What they (probably) didn't do was rape the lady. They just knocked her out so that someone else could come along and rape her.