Last night we watched “El Chapo” on Netflix, then watched the 10 pm news. The connection was inescapable.

• First we saw a docudrama of the short, brutal drug lord. True, the beheaded bodies hanging from bridges were omitted. But there was enough violence to inspire fear and revulsion. The bribing and intimidation of officials, Mexican and American, was troubling. When you have that much money, you can buy nearly anyone, and you can pay to intimidate the others.
• Then we saw thousands of immigrants, many of them young men, pouring across the border unimpeded by the Border Patrol. Many have no papers, and if there are papers there is no way to know whether they are genuine. There are no fingerprints, DNA, or facial recognition on file to assist in identification. How many of the immigrants work for the cartels or are members of gangs like  MS13? No one knows.

Contrary to what is said, you can learn a lot from TV. The problem is that if you say what you learned, you’ll be branded a racist xenophobe and be banned from social media. Perhaps there is a connection here, too.

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