Could another insurrection happen in January? This film imagines what if

NEW YORK (AP) — Election results are contested. Far-right extremists groups are plotting to overthrow the electoral college vote count. Protesters gather in Washington. TV news screens blare: “Capitol in Chaos.”

In the White House Situation Room, the president gathers with advisors to consider their next moves. Only this is not January 6th, 2021, but a simulation of an insurrection very much like it.

In January last year, a group of former generals, senators, governors and civil servants gathered in a Washington D.C. hotel to run an exercise, a war game, to experience the United States on the brink of civil war in January 2025, and, maybe, to find a few ways to avoid a widely shared American nightmare.

In this queasily familiar but slightly alternate reality, the incumbent is President John Hotham, played by the former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock.

“On the one hand, I’m fairly used to dealing with challenging situations,” Bullock said in an interview. “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.”

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