James A. McClure

It’s probably a healthy sign that people are beginning to talk about what will change once the coronavirus has run its course. There’s a lot of speculation about how things will work now that people are concerned about social distancing and have acquired the habit of washing their hands.

One characteristic of this virus is that it is most deadly to people who have co-morbidities such as immune deficiencies, diabetes, obesity and respiratory ailments. The same effect applies to institutions: businesses and organizations that were ailing before the virus hit will face a reckoning and may not survive. The pandemic’s wake-up call is an opportunity to reform dying institutions and re-think some common assumptions. Here are some possibilities:

Retailers — It’s not surprising to see chain stores like Macy’s and Nieman-Marcus closing. Brick-and-mortar stores have been teetering for years. The pandemic is giving them a final nudge while stimulating even more hiring by Amazon and Walmart. Supermarkets and big-box stores have adapted to social distancing. Smaller businesses easily can do so if they survive until the politicians allow them to reopen. The pandemic is forcing consumers to use low-contact services such as online ordering, delivery and drive-up grocery pickup and some of this behavior will be permanent.

Higher education — Colleges and universities are rife with co-morbidities. With the pool of 18-year-old freshpersons declining, their shaky economic model has been artificially propped up by Chinese oligarchs and easy-money student loans. Soaring costs, political conflict, admission scandals and worthless degrees have diminished the value proposition of a college education. Colleges were beginning to close before the virus hit. States now are cutting funding to public colleges and we are going to see a shakeout.

It’s an opportunity to re-think higher education. Institutions that embrace and integrate online learning, as Purdue University is doing, will thrive. Many others will close and some ought to. Can colleges re-purpose themselves from merely indoctrinating the young to lifelong learning and career development? And will college sports accelerate its transition to a fully professional enterprise?

K-12 education — Elementary schools have stepped up during the pandemic to continue feeding children who depend on subsidized meals. Educating them, not so much. Some public schools have put lessons online and obtained laptops for needy kids, others have not. The pandemic has forced millions of kids and parents to sample online learning and home schooling. Some of them may like it, and we are likely to see greater demand for online charter schools and home schooling. Public schools will have an opportunity to integrate more online learning into their classrooms and offer distance-learning options, but teachers’ unions are likely to checkmate such reforms.

Urban planning — For decades, city planners and the politicians who hire them have tried to shame us into abandoning our wasteful suburban homes and SUVs for virtuous high-rise apartments and public transportation. We now know that the high-density lifestyle these experts were pushing was a petri dish of contagion in cities like New York and Wuhan. Big cities were losing population before the pandemic hit and this trend is likely to accelerate. Will anybody listen to urban planners in the future, or will they be forced to seek honest work?

The Postal Service — The post office is an employee-benefit organization that delivers mail as a sideline. It’s been a financial sinkhole for decades and now is asking for a federal bailout because — wait for it — the pandemic has cut its revenues. I’m getting hysterical emails from a Senatorial candidate claiming that MY local post office will close NEXT MONTH unless we somehow remove Sen. Mitch McConnell from office. The Postal Service is a mess because Congress has thwarted attempts to streamline its operation and control costs. The pandemic has made the mess worse and probably merits at least a short-term bailout. This gives Congress an opportunity to combine an aid package with long-needed reforms. Don’t hold your breath.

News Media — While local news coverage of the pandemic has been generally responsible, the national news media have stepped-up their political activism. Most of the rumors and panicky predictions that dominated the headlines — firing of public health officials and the big ventilator shortage — have proven false. The White House press corps is putting on a good show at the daily coronavirus briefings, especially when President Trump plays into their hands, but the media’s already low credibility is taking another hit.

State and local government — Decades of unsustainable employee pensions and out-of-control spending have made many states and cities financially precarious. Unprecedented demand for state unemployment assistance has exposed the frailty of bureaucracy and outdated computer systems. States certainly need federal help to cope with the pandemic, but some states also want federal taxpayers to bail out their pension plans and have shown no willingness to curb spending.

At the same time citizens are pushing back against governors and mayors who have been shutting down the economy and society, sometimes with fascist zeal. Taxpayers whose elected officials have put them out of work may be less willing than in the past to fuel the government spending machine, especially if they must subsidize states that are more irresponsible than their own. Calls for accountability are being met with the usual political outrage, but maybe things will be different this time. Maybe.

Lots of things will be different when the pandemic has run its course and so will we. Americans who are cheering first responders and volunteering to make masks may emerge from the pandemic with a renewed sense of values, a little more healthy skepticism and a willingness to reform or replace the institutions that have failed them. We can hope, anyway.

In the Senate impeachment trial, the Democrats have been saying repeatedly that President Trump is a threat to our democracy and must be removed from office before he steals the 2020 election. My senators and Congressional representative, Democrats all, have repeated this in daily social media posts. Election integrity is important to me, and I’m glad my elected representatives are as concerned about this as I am.

So I was a little suspicious when my son, Haven, received an official-looking invitation to register to vote in New Mexico. Because he lives in Wisconsin.

Haven’s voter registration form arrived in my Albuquerque mailbox with a letter from the Voter Participation Center advising him that publicly available records show that he is eligible to vote in Bernalillo County. That’s odd because my son grew up in Illinois, moved to Wisconsin years ago and has never lived in New Mexico. Neither Haven nor I could figure out how he got on a list of potential New Mexico voters. He never attended school here, held a New Mexico driver’s license, rented a car or signed a petition. Haven’s only presence in the state is his annual Christmas visit. The only record that could possibly connect him with my address is the birthday presents he sends me via Amazon.

Now, that’s a threat to our democracy. Someone who is less law-abiding than I am could send in the registration form and actually vote on my son’s behalf, since New Mexico does not have a voter ID law.

Who would want my Cheesehead son to vote illegally in New Mexico? Must be the Russians, I thought, or perhaps the Ukrainians or the Trump campaign. Turns out the Voter Participation Center is a nonprofit organization with close ties to the Democratic party. John Podesta once served on its board. The Voter Participation Center has come under fire for misleading registration campaigns in several states. The organization sends out millions of voter registration forms that look like they’re coming from a government agency. Many have gone to felons, undocumented immigrants and the deceased with letters assuring them they are eligible to vote.

State election officials have found that many of the applications from the Voter Participation Center are invalid or fraudulent. And some people who are ineligible to vote got in trouble with the law when they sent in a registration form.

Election officials in some states have issued fraud alerts about the Voter Participation Center’s registration drives, and have warned residents that attempting to register when they are not eligible to vote may subject them to prosecution. The New Mexico Secretary of State has issued no such warning because voter fraud apparently is not a problem in New Mexico.

Now that I know that a fraudulent voter registration drive is under way in my state, I am going to contact my elected representatives to alert them to this threat to our democracy. Because they are so concerned about the integrity of the 2020 election, I am confident they will take immediate action to prosecute the Voter Participation Center to the fullest extent of the law.

Immigration ought to be a no-brainer. Control the border with Mexico. Decide who gets in and make it easier for them to do so legally. Deport the criminals. Grant legal status to my cleaning lady. 

But nobody’s thinking along those lines, are they? Democrats want to adopt the same open-door policies that stimulated Brexit and are toppling governments in Europe. Some of President Trump’s policies make sense but are immediately branded as racist because that’s the only argument Democrats have. So nothing is going to happen until the situation becomes so intolerable that voters elect representatives who are willing to compromise. When that happens, they will need to consider issues no one is talking about. 

The United States is a nation of immigrants because generations of immigrants have become Americans. This sets us apart from countries such as France, where Muslim immigrants have been excluded from the mainstream and live in enclaves where terrorists are sheltered from the police.

We used to be good at assimilating immigrants. In the 1970s we welcomed a million Vietnamese refugees (over the objections of Democrats). Those refugees were vetted in a multinational effort and temporarily housed on military bases, where they got a crash course in English and American citizenship and some learned to do manicures. 

So it’s worth asking: What’s being done to assimilate the million or so immigrants streaming across the Mexican border this year? We know most of them disappear after they’re turned loose and won’t show up for immigration hearings. Where do they go? Are they integrating into American society in diverse communities, or are they populating Central American colonies in ethnic ghettos? Are they being encouraged to pursue the American dream, or are their advocates telling them they are victims of racism? Will they become hypenated Americans, as my Hungarian-American grandparents did, or will their ethnicity become the basis for grievance-mongering and plantation politics? 

The first step to assimilate these folks is to identify them, weed out the criminals and grant legal status to the vast majority. If the objective is to bring illegal immigants out of the shadows and put most of them on a path to citizenship, it’s odd that some politicians don’t want to know how many people we’re tallking about: 11 million? 30 million? 

The American immigrant tradition is based on two guiding principles: We welcome practically everyone (not without controversy),and we decide who gets in. That second principle no longer applies at the Mexican border, where smuggling cartels decide who enters the country. 

Opening our borders to everyone who wishes to live here is unsustainable, as they’re learning in Europe. Victor Davis Hanson offers the gloomy hypothesis that unchecked immigration will taper off only when parts of the United States are indistinguishable from the Latin American barrios the migrants left behind.

If and when our government chooses to exercise authority over the border AND overhaul the legal immigration system, our representatives have some decisions to make and opportunities to consider. A starting point may be the “Statue of Liberty” standards once applied at Ellis Island: Admit immigrants who are healthy, able to support themselves and are not criminals or unaccompanied minors.

If we value diversity, why do we favor immigrants from Central America over those from Africa, Asia and Europe? And why do we bring in mostly unskilled immigrants when entry-level jobs are being automated and skilled positions go unfilled? A merit-based system like Canada’s would allow us to move medical and technical workers to the front of the line, with expanded guest worker programs for seasonal and agricultural workers. Perhaps our economy will offer more upward mobility if employers no longer have an unlimited supply of cheap labor.

We also need Armed Forces recruits because the majority of young Americans cannot pass the physical or drug test. Immigrants who meet the standards and speak English should be allowed to enlist and get a fast track to citizenship. (The Navy did this for many years with recruits from the Philippines.)

Limiting chain migration is a good way to bring in more workers and fewer dependents. I’d like to see an exception for family businesses, however, to allow immigrant business owners to bring in relatives to work for them. (Many of my favorite restaurants in Chicago probably are the result of chain migration.)

Our asylum system is a farce when overwhelming numbers of economic migrants are encouraged to file fraudulent claims. We need to close loopholes in the law and admit more genuine asylum seekers such as endangered Iraqi translators and Middle Eastern Christians fleeing genocide.  

We also need to work with Central American governments to stem the flow of migrants. Nothing we can do will transform these failed states into prosperous democracies. (And no, they are not failed states because the United States harvested bananas, fought communists or went after druglords.) But cooperation still is possible. The Trump administration’s outreach to Mexico and Guatemala is a good start toward the kind of multinational initiative that resettled Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s. 

One problem is that exporting poor people to the United States is a rational economic strategy for Central American governments. Migrants get jobs and government services in the U.S. that enable them to send more money to their families than they would earn at home. Actively encouraging its citizens to sneak across the border has been successful for Mexico, where remittances from Mexicans in the U.S. contribute more to the country’s GDP ($30 billion a year) than oil exports. 

This is not necessarily a bad thing. The voluntary foreign aid of individual remittances, which dwarfs U.S. aid to Central American governments, helped Mexico grow its economy and eventually reduced the flow of migrants. We can’t expect these governments to change their economic model, but we can work with them to expand trade and regulate the flow of migrants. This will support our national interest as well as theirs and make the relationship less parasitic. Taxing remittances to fund border security and other initiatives is a good first step. 

Fixing our immigation system offers many opportunities but will remain a big problem so long as our elected representatives refuse to solve it. The only question is how serious the border crisis will become before the voters force politicians to work together as a last resort. 

One of the many political controversies swirling around is the role of social media such as Facebook and Twitter in poisoning public discourse and fanning the partisan flames. Censorship of political opinion is a growing concern, along with the influence of doctored videos, Russian bots and fake accounts. But the remedy of government regulation may be as dangerous as the disease.

I saw a precursor of this controversy when I worked for Illinois Bell in the 1970s. The hot technology in those days was the telephone answering machine, which delivered a recorded message to anyone who dialed the machine’s phone number. 

Every technology has its dark side. At one point a white supremacist group in Chicago set up an answering machine to deliver a virulently racist message. Predictably, the politicians and media went into outrage mode and demanded that Illinois Bell take the message down. 

I worked in media relations at the time and had some interesting conversations with reporters. 

Yes, we agree that the message is repugnant, but Illinois Bell does not have the authority to censor the content of telephone messages. You really don’t want the telephone company involved in censorship, do you? 

I pointed out that if a court were to order Illinois Bell to take down the offending message as a threat to public safety, our technicians could disconnect the white supremacists before the ink on the court order was dry. But that’s up to the judicial system and not the Bell System. 

I also reminded reporters that no one was forcing people to pick up the phone and dial that specific number. If you don’t want to be offended by the white supremacists’ message, don’t call them. People figured this out and the controversy soon blew over. 

What kept Illinois Bell out of a censorship nightmare was that we were a regulated public utility, accountable to both the Illinois Commerce Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. Any attempt on our part to pass judgment on the content transmitted over our wires, even if we wanted to, would run afoul of a large body of regulatory law. 

Our status as a regulated monopoly also drove corporate policies and ethical standards designed to earn the trust of customers and keep the company out of trouble with regulators. Censorship was not a big issue but safeguarding customer privacy was practically a religion. Employees signed off on the company’s privacy policy on their first day of work. Eavesdropping on telephone conversations was strictly forbidden and revealing an unlisted phone number was grounds for dismissal. 

This was more than a regulatory requirement: It was deeply engrained in a strong telephone company culture that had been nurtured for generations. Employees took the company’s commitment to privacy personally, not for fear of getting fired but because it was part of their value system. Telephone operators would never give out an unlisted phone number (even under torture, I suspect) because it was not just against the rules, it was unthinkable. 

Could this be a model for the social media companies? That’s hard to tell. Regulating Facebook and Twitter as media companies could make them more responsible for content but runs the risk of government censorship. Making them public utilities could outlaw censorship but would be difficult to enforce. Government-imposed privacy safeguards could help, but that ship probably has sailed. 

If the Bell System is an example, no regulatory policy will be effective unless it has the full support of management and is embedded in the corporate culture. For the social media companies, this probably would require new leadership and a massive overhaul of a politicized corporate monoculture.