'War Game' film imagines another January insurrection
A new film titled "War Game" seeks to imagine a contested 2024 presidential election and a January insurrection, similar to the one seen on Jan. 6, 2021.
Last January, a group of former elected officials, including governors, senators and military generals met at a hotel in Washington D.C. to simulate what it would be like if the U.S. was on the brink of a civil war in January 2025.
The meeting led to the creation of the film, "War Game" which releases in theaters across the nation this Friday.
"U.S. officials simulate a coup post a disputed election. Insurgents take capitals, questioning the president's military control. Countering disinformation is vital, highlighting bipartisan defense of democracy," a description of the film on IMDB states.
Former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock is set to play the incumbent President John Hotham in the film. While speaking with The Associated Press (AP) this week, Bullock spoke about how he dealt with the challenges while he and others met in the Washington D.C. hotel last year.
"On the one hand, I'm fairly used to dealing with challenging situations," he told the AP. "Here, it really was between the fog of war and the fog of disinformation, trying to figure out what was right not just for today but for tomorrow. It was definitely a tense six hours."
In the Washington D.C. hotel room, Bullock along with others from both sides of the political spectrum, sat for six hours, and lived through a simulated insurrection. The meeting was captured by the film's directors Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss.
"I couldn't help but feel that it was prophetic, that it would be a kind of crystal ball that would help us peer into a possible future, perhaps to avoid it," Moss said in an interview with the AP. "We didn't know if the country would descend into civil war."
The idea to simulate a insurrection came from the veteran's organization Vet Voice Foundation. The organization was influenced to come up with the idea after seeing many former U.S. service members at the Jan. 6, 2021 riots, where many supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in violent scenes.
Retired General Linda Singh, who plays the National Guard Chief in the film, told the AP that "Given what we saw on Jan. 6, anything is plausible."
"For us, it may not necessarily be active military, but we've seen a lot of veterans in that group, whether they're working for police departments or they're retired. We have to plan for the most extreme," Singh said.
