It is Jan. 6, 2025, and the US president looks on in horror as his narrowly defeated rival calls on the armed forces to help overthrow the “fraudulent” election result.
The scene is from War Game, a new documentary premiering at the Sundance film festival on Tuesday in which real former government and military officials take part in an unscripted role-play exercise imagining another assault on the Capitol.
But for its directors, the scenario — which echoes the events of Jan. 6, 2021, except that this time, rogue police and soldiers defect to join protests, which spread nationwide — is not so far-fetched.
Photo: AFP
“It’s terrifying how timely the film continues to become,” said co-director Jesse Moss.
“And I do worry about how timely it may yet be one year from now.”
In the film, former Montana governor Steve Bullock assumes the role of US president, who has six hours to decide how to confront the rapidly escalating coup attempt.
Photo: Bloomberg
His advisors are played by real-life US senators, FBI and CIA officers, military colonels and a former NATO commander.
They gather in an elaborate war room — the set was inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove — and receive updates from intelligence briefings, social media and a fictional rolling news channel.
“This was, for six hours, a real experience for all of us,” Bullock said. “It was a stressful environment... nobody was thinking about the cameras being there,” he added.
Photo: AFP
‘DISTURBING’
Simultaneously, a fictional paramilitary group called the “Order of Columbus,” played by former US veterans, are gathered elsewhere, sowing disinformation online and encouraging soldiers to break ranks.
The role-play exercise was originally inspired by a Washington Post op-ed written by three US generals in 2021, which warned of growing extremism within the armed forces, and urged the military to prepare for possible insurrection after this year’s election.
Photo: AFP
“A disturbing number of veterans and active-duty members of the military took part in the attack on the Capitol,” it read.
“The idea of rogue units organizing among themselves to support the ‘rightful’ commander in chief cannot be dismissed,” the generals wrote.
Vet Voice, a foundation representing US military veterans and their families, decided to undertake the exercise.
They agreed to allow cameras in for the documentary, and have provided a report on the exercise to the White House, Congress and the Pentagon.
“The only response they have received so far from the US administration is a ‘thank you,’” said Vet Voice CEO Janessa Goldbeck. “There are many folks in the administration who are working on this topic. But it’s controversial,” she said.
“There’s a lot of pushback that it’s disrespectful to our troops and to our veterans to talk about this issue,” Goldbeck added.
TRUMP
The premiere of War Game happened to fall on the day of the New Hampshire primary, where Donald Trump trounced his sole remaining challenger and moved closer to sealing the Republican presidential nomination.
And while War Game uses fictional candidates, the former president’s influence on the proceedings is hard to escape.
At one point, during a discussion on whether to invoke the Insurrection Act — which allows the president to use federal troops to enforce the law — the former president’s name is mentioned by two “advisors.”
Trump has hinted at an expanded role for the military within the US if he wins a second term.
And he faces trial for conspiring to upend the result of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
The movie’s directors point out that Trump was “on the periphery” when they filmed the role-play exercise just over a year ago, and that bipartisan figures from both sides of the aisle took part.
The forces that drove the events of January 6, 2021, such as political polarization and “the alternative reality that some people seem to inhabit... transcend Donald Trump,” said Moss.
“But Trump has moved front and center,” he said.
“And I think the threats that we dramatize in the film are acute, are terrifying, are very real.”
April 28 to May 4 During the Japanese colonial era, a city’s “first” high school typically served Japanese students, while Taiwanese attended the “second” high school. Only in Taichung was this reversed. That’s because when Taichung First High School opened its doors on May 1, 1915 to serve Taiwanese students who were previously barred from secondary education, it was the only high school in town. Former principal Hideo Azukisawa threatened to quit when the government in 1922 attempted to transfer the “first” designation to a new local high school for Japanese students, leading to this unusual situation. Prior to the Taichung First
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
The Ministry of Education last month proposed a nationwide ban on mobile devices in schools, aiming to curb concerns over student phone addiction. Under the revised regulation, which will take effect in August, teachers and schools will be required to collect mobile devices — including phones, laptops and wearables devices — for safekeeping during school hours, unless they are being used for educational purposes. For Chang Fong-ching (張鳳琴), the ban will have a positive impact. “It’s a good move,” says the professor in the department of
Toward the outside edge of Taichung City, in Wufeng District (霧峰去), sits a sprawling collection of single-story buildings with tiled roofs belonging to the Wufeng Lin (霧峰林家) family, who rose to prominence through success in military, commercial, and artistic endeavors in the 19th century. Most of these buildings have brick walls and tiled roofs in the traditional reddish-brown color, but in the middle is one incongruous property with bright white walls and a black tiled roof: Yipu Garden (頤圃). Purists may scoff at the Japanese-style exterior and its radical departure from the Fujianese architectural style of the surrounding buildings. However, the property
RSS