This episode largely centers around President Nimbala of the fictional country Equatorial Kundu trying to get AIDS drugs for his people. He works throughout the episode with Josh and Toby but runs into roadblock after roadblock. Towards the end of the episode, his government is overthrown by a coup, and despite President Bartlet’s offer for him to stay, President Nimbala goes home. We learn at the end of the episode that he was executed in the airport parking lot.

Brazil just this Monday experienced an attack on its government by hundreds of supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, the former President of the country. They stormed the Supreme Court, Presidential Offices, and Congress. Some have also built camps outside of the country’s military bases and called for a military coup, something very scary for the people of a country which was ruled by a coup sparked dictatorship only 38 years ago. Bolsonaro is currently in Florida, and many are pressuring President Biden to send him back to Brazil. However, some are worried that his returning to Brazil would cause more violence. The protesters in Brazil are angry because Lula da Silva, who they believe is corrupt and belongs in jail, was sworn in on January 1st. They believe that Bolsonaro is rightfully President and there was fraud with the electronic voting, something which Bolsonaro was pushing throughout the election. This has caused many in the US to draw a comparison to the January 6th attacks.

However, what may be more concerning is the differences. Former President Trump continued to push after he already lost the election the idea that the results were fake, something he still claims today. He directly told his followers to storm the capitol, in fact telling them that he would be marching with them, and they did. Bolsonaro, on the other hand, had sort of given up on the idea, authorizing the transition of power and suggesting to his followers to move on. But they haven’t. The previous rhetoric and information that he had pushed, and the sea of misinformation they were being exposed to on social media was so powerful that the protesters, brought together in support of Bolsonero, have moved forward, violently, in spite of the fact that Bolsenero himself wants things to come to an end.

This is the danger of living in a world where misinformation can spread so quickly without any sort of check. It becomes very easy to see a side, or issues, or people as black and white. This is seen in the episode when Ainsely’s two friends are talking about The White House staff and say “I hate these people” and call them “worthless”. Ainsley then claims that they’re wrong, and the people she met at The White House were “extraordinarily qualified, their intent is good, their commitment is true, they are righteous, and they are patriots”. Her friends are not able to see that because they are so entrenched in their ideas and hatred for the other side.

The reason that this episode is so heart-wrenching is that throughout the whole episode, we see the nobleness of President Nimbala doing everything that he possibly can for his people, so it feels enormously unfair that he has everything taken from him in a coup. There are many leaders all around the world working in governments to help their people. If people stopped and took the time to consider other perspectives, they could come around to see others with these perspectives not as worthless, or through the lens of hatred, but as real people, like President Nimbala. Maybe with that humanity in perspective, people would be less violently polarized.