Five Years After the Start of the Pandemic, We're Living in the Upside Down
PLUS: A review of Pixar's "Win or Lose"
I was out for a drive last weekend when I came upon a demonstration outside the gates of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the government agency primarily responsible for biomedical and public health research. The people gathered there were protesting the Trump administration’s evisceration of the United States’ public health system. At NIH alone, Trump/Musk have arbitrarily laid-off at least 1,500 “probationary” employees, so classified because they were either new hires or recently promoted to new positions. Their termination had nothing to do with the quality of their work or the work they were doing. Trump/Musk have also frozen close to $47 billion in NIH grants to research institutions. This is devastating to NIH’s mission, since the agency basically operates by disbursing funds to outside research facilities. Without that critical funding, many of those research projects would end. Just to appreciate where that funding has historically gone, note that 174 scientists who either worked at NIH or whose work was supported by NIH have received a Nobel Prize, including thirty over the past ten years.
Had those demonstrators not been there, I probably wouldn’t have looked in NIH’s direction. Normally, when I’m driving through this stretch of suburban DC, I glance over at the other side of the street, where the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is located. Whenever I pass by that facility, I flash back to the fall of 2020, when Trump was rushed there by helicopter after his COVID diagnosis took a turn for the worse. The scene is seared into my memory because my Spotify account randomly decided to soundtrack the live TV coverage of Trump’s emergency trip to the hospital with “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey. It was rather surreal watching an arrogant 74-year-old buffoon enter a deathmatch with a microbe he insisted we had no reason to fear as Steve Perry belted out
Some’ll win, some will lose
Some are born to sing the blues
Whoa, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on
On and on and on and on indeed.
It’s been five years since COVID shut the world down. No one knew on Friday the 13th of March, 2020, what the future would hold, but given what transpired, this is not the future that makes sense. The guy who botched the response to the pandemic so badly that he got voted out of the White House is now back in the White House. The nutjob he put in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services is the nation’s foremost vaccine denier. That nutjob spent the past week dealing with a measles outbreak in Texas by talking up the dangers associated with vaccines, promoting bunk treatments, blaming the outbreak on poor diets and lack of exercise, and suggesting the best way to develop immunity to the measles is by catching the measles.
By taking an axe to our public health agencies, the Trump administration has revealed its determination to punish those who led the response to the pandemic. There are lots of people out there still angry over masking, school closures, vaccine mandates, and lockdowns. The pandemic did suck. I’ll even concede public health officials made some mistakes in the moment as they were dealing with a public health emergency that would take the lives of at least one million Americans in two-and-a-half years. (That’s 345,000 more than died during our four-year-long Civil War and more than double the number of Americans who died in roughly three-and-a-half years of fighting during World War II.) The crazy thing about that, however, is that 40% of those deaths came after June 2021, when COVID vaccines were widely available. Most of those deaths were among the unvaccinated. These vaccine skeptics today make up a fair portion of Trump’s base. Their views are driving the nation’s public health policy. In other words, five years after the start of a deadly pandemic, the people who worked conscientiously to save the lives of millions of Americans are being tossed aside by the emissaries of quacks who probably think a bird flu outbreak can be treated by drinking a cup of Joe Rogan’s Kool-Aid.
The triumph of the anti-science/anti-public-health faction isn’t the only sign American life has gone bonkers. Just consider where we now stand on matters of racial equality. Five years ago, following the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, the United States seemed ready to listen to the demands of the Black Lives Matter Movement and reckon with the issue of systemic racism.
Today, not only has the Trump administration launched an assault on the much-maligned idea of “equity” (the “E” in DEI) but on “D” (diversity) and “I” (inclusion) as well. Trump/Musk have ended federal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and laid-off federal workers associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Most notably, Trump fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, four-star Air Force General Charles Q. Brown (a black man), whom Republican senators had claimed was too concerned with diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.1
Additionally, the Washington Post reported DOGE intends to gut federal offices authorized to protect the equal rights of federal employees and veterans. The Department of Education has threatened to defund colleges and universities with diversity, equity, and inclusion programming. A Department of Justice memo indicated educational institutions and private companies—even potentially those that do not have contracts with the government—would be subject to prosecution for operating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. (Many private companies had already scaled back their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, but those undertakings accelerated after Trump returned to the White House.) The New York Times reports federal websites have been scrubbed of dozens of words and phrases that run afoul of the administration’s anti-DEI crusade, including “bias,” “cultural differences,” “discrimination,” “diverse,” “equality,” “gender,” “inequality,” “injustice,” “minority,” “multicultural,” “prejudice,” “race,” “racism,” “segregation,” “social justice,” and “underrepresented.”2
Perhaps most symbolically, Washington DC this past week removed the Black Lives Matter street mural located just north of the White House after congressional Republicans threatened to cut the city’s transportation funding if the mural was not demolished and the plaza renamed. DC installed the mural in 2020 after law enforcement officers used tear gas to clear the area of protestors so Trump could hold a photo op with a Bible in front of a nearby church. It is as though the nation is turning the clock back beyond not only 2020 or 2013 (when the phrase “Black Lives Matter” was coined in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin) but to some mythical era when multiculturalism wasn’t a thing and people like current Under Secretary of State Darren Beattie (“Competent white men must be put in charge if you want things to work”) judged people on merit rather than the color of their skin (wink, wink). (For more on the meaning of the removal of the Black Lives Matter mural, see Clint Smith’s “Republicans Tear Down a Black Lives Matter Mural” in The Atlantic.)
There’s more. In 2017, the #MeToo Movement raised awareness about the huge number of women who had been subjected to sexual harassment and sexual assault in the United States. That in turn compelled businesses and organizations across the country to update their sexual harassment policies and address issues related to gender inequality. Additionally, the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision put the importance of women’s reproductive rights in the spotlight.
Yet despite all the rightful attention that was brought to bear on women’s issues over the past eight years, we were constantly reminded during the 2024 campaign that it was the nation’s men who were in crisis. That’s a legit concern, of course. But what was unsettling about it was the way right-wing appeals to male voters took on an ugly chauvinistic tone. Right-wingers insisted it was men who were under attack; that a progressive women’s agenda focused on bodily autonomy, freedom from harassment and assault, and gender equality came at men’s expense. These voters rallied around a man who has been accused by at least twenty-five women of either rape, sexual assault, or sexual harassment; who in 2023 was found liable for sexual abuse (a charge the judge in the case said amounted to rape); and who once bragged about grabbing women by the genitals. On the campaign trail, that man vowed to protect women “whether they like it or not.” His running mate mocked “childless cat ladies.” In the wake of the election, phrases like “get back in the kitchen” and “your body, my choice” have gone viral on social media. Toxic masculinity is now resurgent.
Finally, let’s not forget that in January 2021, in the most brazen attempt by a president to undermine our democracy, Don Trump sent an angry mob to the Capitol to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power and overturn an election he falsely claimed had been stolen from him. Four years later, he retook the oath of office in that building and then pardoned the roughly 1,500 rioters (whom Trump described as “patriots,” “hostages,” and “peaceful protesters”) who committed their often violent crimes on his behalf. No one had ever done more to disqualify himself from the presidency. Yet here we are.
So yeah, the U.S. reacted to a public health crisis by crippling its public health system. It responded to efforts to address systemic racism by attacking multiculturalism. It answered a movement that drew attention to sexual misconduct by doubling down on misogyny. And following an assault on its own democracy, it sided with autocracy.
Some will say Democrats, public health officials, social justice activists, women’s rights advocates, and law enforcement officials all overreached, and that what we’re witnessing now is the inevitable correction, the political pendulum swinging back to the right. But what’s going on now isn’t merely a conservative correction. It’s more like an angry and vengeful spirit has dragged us all into the Upside Down version of America, a dark and dismal alternate dimension overgrown by the vines of ignorance, paranoia, racism, chauvinism, bigotry, demagoguery, despotism, cronyism, and cruelty. It’s like a mirror image of our country, but one poisoned by all the rotten things we’ve tried to shed over the centuries in our pursuit of a more perfect union.
If you’re like me, you find living in this Upside Down America infuriating. We can debate for days how we got here. Just don’t let them gaslight you into believing the faith you placed in values like equality, compassion, decency, rational government, and democracy is what has somehow landed us in this mess. If anything, it will be a positive reassertion and reformulation of those values that will pull us out of this morass.
Because here’s the thing about the Upside Down: It openly embraces darkness. While I am under no illusion about the political appeal of fear and loathing in this country, we are also an optimistic nation whose conscience can be troubled by injustice and villainy and that can be stirred to action by invoking its ideals. If the Upside Down is a mirror version of America, what people will see reflected back at them is something ugly, bleak, and disgraceful. The people of this country don’t want to see themselves that way. Knowing that, we need to make it our mission to imagine a brighter, right-side up version of the country that can fill Americans with pride and hope.
Signals and Noise
“How Far Gone Are We?” by Jamelle Bouie (New York Times)
“Move Fast and Destroy Democracy” by Kara Swisher (The Atlantic)
“Trump and Musk are Building a New Spoils System” by Don Moynihan (Can We Still Govern?)
“Elon Musk Looks Desperate” by Charlie Warzel (The Atlantic)
“‘The Only Practical Check That’s Left is the Power of the Purse’” by James Fallows (Breaking the News)
“Trump Vowed to Pursue Undocumented Immigrants. Now Legal Immigrants are Targets, Too” by Myah Ward and Irie Sentner (Politico)
“The Abduction of Mahmoud Khalil” by John Ganz (Unpopular Front)
“Mahmoud Khalil’s Detention Is a Trial Run” by Adam Serwer (The Atlantic)
“This Is the Greatest Threat to Free Speech Since the Red Scare” by Michelle Goldberg (New York Times)
“Anti-Semitism Is Just a Pretext” by Jonathan Chait (The Atlantic)
“Real Chilling Effects” by Don Moynihan (Can We Still Govern?)
“Alito ‘Stunned’ By Court Exercising Judicial Power He Championed & Expanded Just Months Ago” by Techdirt (Above the Law)
“A Quarter-Century Ago, We Were Idealists. What Are We Now?” by Philip Bump (Washington Post)
Vincent’s Picks: Win or Lose
I’ve often heard professional athletes say that in times of great personal distress, they look forward to playing games because doing so offers them a momentary escape from the pressures of the real world. That’s perhaps shocking to some of us, as the prospect of competing in what may be a nationally-televised sporting event in front of tens of thousands of very vocal people who desperately want you to either fail or succeed (the latter of whom will be heartbroken if you let them down) does not sound like a way to relieve one’s stress at all. Yet, for what I’m sure are a variety of reasons (love of the game, the way preparation and competition focus the mind) that’s the zone many athletes enter when they step between the lines.
Yet we also know many athletes can’t help but bring whatever they’re feeling off the field onto the field. NBA player Kevin Love has spoken up frequently about his own struggles with anxiety, rage, and depression as he’s encouraged other athletes to attend to their mental health. “Everyone is going through something that we can’t see,” Love wrote in a 2018 article for The Players’ Tribune. “The thing is, because we can’t see it, we don’t know who’s going through what and we don’t know when and we don’t always know why. Mental health is an invisible thing, but it touches all of us at some point or another.”
That “invisible thing” is the subject of Win or Lose, a magical eight episode television series by Pixar now streaming in its entirety on Disney+. The show’s main characters are not drawn from a professional sports franchise, however, but from a co-ed middle-school-aged softball team named the Pickles. The stakes of the competition therefore are quite small, but each character is the towering figure in their own personal drama and brings the weight of their own world with them to the ballpark.
Win or Lose takes a novel approach to telling the Pickles’ story. Each episode is centered on a different character and their actions leading up to the championship game. Each character, however, is dealing with something that manifests itself in a way the other characters don’t see. For example, the first episode focuses on Laurie (voiced by Rosie Foss) the Pickles’ right fielder, whom, as those of us who know what it means to be a little league right fielder may have discerned, is just not very good at softball. She’s trying really hard, though, because she wants to do well for her dad, Coach Dan (voiced by Will Forte) who is in the midst of a divorce. Her insecurity and anxiety manifest themselves in the form of a pesky, ever-enlarging blob of sentient sweat that goes from sitting on her shoulder to clinging piggyback-style to the poor girl as she tries to bat. (You can watch Laurie’s episode below.)
These psychological constructions take different forms with different characters depending on what they’re going through. For instance, the umpire Mr. Brown (voiced by Josh Thomson) is a good umpire because he’s able to manifest a suit of armor that deflects the invective that is sometimes hurled his way by players, coaches, and fans. That armor, however, is also used as a way to keep himself emotionally removed from others, most notably a girlfriend who broke up with him because he wouldn’t commit to marriage. A shocking discovery the week of the championship game so devastates Mr. Brown that his armor begins failing him. The Pickles’ catcher Rochelle (voiced by Milan Ray) is an outstanding student whose single mother Vanessa (voiced by Rosa Salazar) struggles to make ends meet. Rochelle adapts by transforming into an older version of herself in a business suit who works tirelessly at the concession stand to earn enough money to pay the team fee. When that fee increases, the self-reliant go-getter turns to ever more desperate means to get the money she needs to keep playing. One of my favorite characters is Yuwen (voiced by Izaac Wang) the cocky pitcher who uses his arrogance to conceal his immaturity and insecurity, which is represented by a crudely animated version of himself that dwells within his cardboard heart.
While each episode focuses on a different player, the episodes basically play out over the same period of time. That means the events that occur in one episode may pop up either foregrounded or backgrounded in other episodes. These moments ripple through the series, in some cases crashing into other characters while at other times barely affecting them. As viewers, we’re also treated to a kind of Rashomon effect, as events play out a little differently depending on what perspective we’re seeing these events from. For example, the way Laurie envisions herself getting hit by a pitch is quite different from the way the team sees it from the dug-out. The novel idea Win or Lose brings to Rashomon-style storytelling is that different perspectives can be shaped by different psychological states of mind. It’s not just that we see things from different angles or bring different biases or agendas to our interpretation of events, but that our mental and emotional states may predispose us to responding in certain ways to the world. What we think about and how we react to a close play at the plate (the one Win or Lose constantly returns to is clouded in dust) doesn’t just depend on where we’re sitting or who we’re rooting for, but if we’re dealing with things such as self-doubt, financial insecurity, parental anxiety, or heartbreak, or just trying to keep a positive mental attitude in the face of all that.
It’s unfortunate Disney recently announced it would no longer be creating original longform animated content for Disney+, because Pixar, which some have said has entered a slump of late, seems rejuvenated by Win or Lose. The studio tread similar thematic ground with the Inside Out franchise, but the episodic format of Win or Lose opens up new narrative possibilities for their storytellers to explore. The creative flourishes we’ve long expected from Pixar are back in full force here as well. The show includes recurring weirdo characters like Chicken-Kev (a teenager constantly dressed as a team mascot who quacks[?] like a chicken and at times exudes Michael Myers-style menace) and Odo (a disturbing little boy who becomes a prophet by guzzling orange soda). It also features a fantastic collection of short songs by the music production team Campfire.
It must be mentioned Win or Lose is not without controversy. Last December, The Hollywood Reporter reported Disney had cut a storyline involving a transgender character from the show. That character, Kai (voiced by transgender actress Chanel Stewart) is the focus of the series’ seventh episode; she’s the center fielder repeatedly seen making an amazing catch and throwing a baserunner out at home. Having watched the whole series, I can say that’s not quite the full story. Rather than explicitly state that Kai is transgender, it is now implied she is transgender: Her wardrobe and hair change over the course of a montage from androgynous to feminine, it is mentioned she used to play baseball, and there is a muffled conversation between Kai and her father where the subject is probably being discussed. (By the way, Kai has a good grandmother and a father who quickly comes around to supporting her.) Some reporting suggested Kai’s character is cisgender. I don’t think that’s accurate even if Kai is no longer explicitly transgender and if her gender identity isn’t a focus of her storyline. It seems to me the writing between the lines is pretty clear.
The disappointing thing is that Disney didn’t have the courage to deal with Kai’s gender identity more directly. The issue for me isn’t representation. It’s that Win or Lose is about psychological burdens, and Kai is carrying a heavy one. They owe it to her character to explore that. More importantly, however, Win or Lose is telling its audience that everyone we encounter in life is going through their own thing at the moment that is shaping their behavior in ways we can’t completely perceive. Once we realize that, we’ll conclude we ought to treat others with more grace and empathy. That’s something in short supply right now when it comes to the treatment of transgender people by others. It could have been eye-opening for many in the audience to see a transgender kid agonizing over whether the world will accept her for who she is when all she wants is to join a team and play a game she loves.
The final episode of Win or Lose focuses on Coach Dan and culminates in the championship game, when all the storylines converge in a benches-clearing psychological royal rumble. Yet the show wisely avoids a pat resolution. No one sheds whatever it is they’re dealing with; rather, they continue to live with it, cope with it, learn how to handle it a little bit better, and come to a better understanding of what others are going through. As much as this show can help kids who aren’t too sure about themselves, my hope is any adult who works with children takes its message to heart as well. We need to remember we may have no idea what invisible thing a kid is bringing to the plate with them.
Exit Music: “Say It Isn’t So” by Daryl Hall and John Oates (1983, Greatest Hits – Rock ‘n Soul Part 1)
Some Republicans and Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also claimed Brown did not earn his promotion to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on merit. Hegseth (a white man) speculated in a book he wrote that Brown (MS in aeronautical science, former commander of the Pacific Air Forces and U.S. Air Forces Central Command, nominated in 2020 by [checks notes] President Donald J. Trump to serve as Chief of Staff of the Air Force) had risen to his position as a diversity hire. That’s rich coming from a former FOX News host who has faced allegations of sexual misconduct, financial mismanagement, and alcohol abuse and who had never led a large organization in his life before Trump decided he should be in charge of the Pentagon. What’s more, the person Trump nominated as Brown’s replacement, retired Air Force Lieutenant General Dan Caine (a white man) would become the first Joint Chiefs Chairman never to have served with a four-star rank.
The edict to remove language associated with DEI extends to references to gender and sexual orientation. Among the many pictures removed from government websites for violating this policy are photographs of the airplane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan during World War II. You may wonder how an airplane can run afoul of an anti-DEI crusade, but recall that plane was named the Enola GAY.