Not to be outdone by his previous string of lies (now extending for about two years), President Donald Trump stood in public this week and, without any proof, stated that the migrants who are marching north seeking relief from crime and oppressive governments and abject poverty contain within that mass of humanity Middle Easterners (read that Muslims) who want to harm the U.S.

He started his racist rants while he was busy trampling his Republican opponents into the dust in his party's primary campaign and he has never let up.  His diatribes included Mexicans and Muslims and the drumbeat against them never stopped, although he tried to mitigate his fear-mongering just a little, by saying that there might be “some good people” among them. Mostly, though, he warned that all of these outsiders, those “others,” pose a direct threat to his core supporters and voters.

The president has said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York City and he wouldn't lose a vote. It's beginning to look as if he was reading his constituents correctly. There is virtually nothing he can do or say that will lessen their support. Most of his adherents seem to want it that way and like that he says things that are so prejudicial and hateful that they would not say them aloud themselves. But, he does, and they like it.

Ignorance of how the real world works is what allows someone like Trump to act in such a manner. For example, the migration of thousands of men, women, and children from Central America is likely the clearest sign that these people are desperate and they fear something that is very real: the likelihood that, if they stayed in their homes and villages, they might be subject to torture or extrajudicial killing by either government hit squads (fearing that some might be socialist or communist) or the drug lords might order them to cooperate with them or suffer pain or death. This president has no capacity to understand that the world, in a global economy, works differently from real estate predators in New York City, where his bravado and braggadocio count for a “good deal.” It doesn't work in the real world, but Trump and his minions in the administration do not seem to realize any of that, and the Republican congress has been convinced or intimidated into complying with the wishes of a know-nothing, as he struts around on the world stage, a pale imitation of Benito Mussolini in the 1920s.

Again, creating “alternative facts” out of whole cloth, the president went through his litany of epithets against the thousands that are headed north, that they are bringing crime and drugs and all manner of negative elements to the U.S. So far, however, he has not said they are bringing disease, as he has said many times in the past. He may have already said this by the time this is read. He threatens to cut off financial aid to the countries that fail to stop the humanity heading for his home turf, hoping to find a kinder and gentler place to raise their babies and children. But, that's what it is. U.S. policy over many decades has played its part in forcing people to leave their homes and villages without anything of their belongings but what they can carry. And, as they journey hundreds and possibly thousands of miles, they lose even the few possessions they were able to carry.

It is not surprising that Trump cannot put himself in their shoes, for he has never wanted for any material thing in his seven decades of life. What is surprising is that his followers, many of whom are the equivalent (in terms of their place in U.S. society) of the mostly Honduran migrants, are not able to see themselves in the same conditions. Untold numbers of Americans who support Trump are placed at the margins of society and are not likely to move from there, no matter how elaborate Trump's lies are.

Even the mass media in the U.S. has lent itself to the scare-mongering of Trump. This week, the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) had this to say about it: “The idea that the caravan was being used by Middle Eastern terrorists to camouflage their passage to the U.S. began spreading on right-wing blogs last week, and made its way to Fox News on Monday morning. During a Fox & Friends segment on the caravan, Pete Hegseth claimed that '100 ISIS fighters' had been captured in Guatemala; a couple of hours later, Trump tweeted about it. Reporters who have been travelling with the migrants refuted the claim, and by Monday afternoon, it fell to Fox’s Shepard Smith to clarify that 'Fox News knows of no evidence to suggest the president is accurate on that matter.' And the president has offered no evidence to support what he has said.”

“No evidence to support what he has said” is par for the course for Trump, who tried out a different lie earlier this week: The Democrats did it. Somehow, he thinks the people will believe that the main opposition party would have enough money to support thousands of people fleeing for their lives. And, he also has tried out this one: George Soros did it. Trump wants the people to believe that the billionaire, who contributes to Democrats and liberal causes would somehow spend large amounts of money to encourage thousands to abandon their lives, throw their worldly goods into a backpack, and head north.

The president's islamophobic and racist views of the nation and the world have found an election issue that has fallen into his lap just weeks before the mid-term election. He is using it to the greatest advantage of himself and his party. After all, it worked in both his primary campaign and in the general election, so why shouldn't it work now? For someone who was able to find “some good people” among the white supremacists and nazis in Charlottesville last year, he is finding it very hard to find the good people among the migrants, one of whom told NBC News this week that he and the rest just want to find a place to live where they can work (and earn a living). Although we can't know all of migrants, we can believe that the overwhelming percentage of them are good people. Who walks that far carrying babies and young children to commit mayhem in the U.S.? We can leave that to the Trump Administration.

Trump has ridden the horse of racism and the issue of “illegal immigration” to appeal to his base for a number of years and he doesn't want to stop now. As CJR noted, “The plight of migrants seeking refuge from violence and poverty demands coverage, but news outlets don’t have to frame that reporting on Trump’s terms.”

A great manipulator of the news and his television audiences from his reality show, The Apprentice, he has been the one who has manipulated the press in its coverage of him and his incessant Tweets. But then, how would the press cover his antics or not cover his antics? His erratic behavior makes good copy and the biggest outlets for “news” are owned by his friends and colleagues, the billionaire class and their friends and minions who are only worth $40 million or $50 million. Instead of covering the issues, they have covered him and that's what he and his base want.

The press needs to do more reporting on the people who are marching on the road to (they hope) freedom, which they expect to find at the U.S. southern frontier. After all, the nation of immigrants has welcomed people from many nations for hundreds of years, excluding of course, the genocide of the Native Americans and the kidnapping and sale of human beings in the atrocity known as chattel slavery. Even if he once read a book about these things, he has forgotten or, more likely, has never been able to empathize or sympathize with others' travails. We can't look to the White House for leadership on the issue of mass migration, even if the U.S. is a main cause, because nothing is Trump's fault and, therefore, nothing could be America's fault. Because he's perfect. Just ask him.