Get the latest gossip

The Chilling War Game Shows Us What America’s Next Insurrection Might Look Like


Anyone who witnessed the real January 6 will find their stomach in knots, though admittedly some of us have had our stomachs in knots for years now.

A political thriller in documentary form, Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber’s War Game follows the narrative of this simulation, showing us the breathless back and forth of the fictional president (played by former Montana governor Steve Bullock) and his advisers, the constant news “updates” (from a mock television channel created for the occasion), as well as the pretend insurrection leaders working overtime to inflame the situation, flooding the zone with social-media memes and ominous, threatening proclamations. Among them are Kristofer Goldsmith and Chris Jones, two veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who are role-playing as leaders of the Order of Columbus, a fictional extremist organization modeled after the Oath Keepers and other real groups. Is it really possible to call this group bipartisan in any modern sense of the word when one of the country’s two major political parties has basically been taken over by the extreme right and now considers January 6 to be some kind of heroic rebellion?

Get the Android app

Or read this on VULTURE