“Struggle Recreation” Provides a Glimpse of What Could Occur if Trump Loses

Final week, I attended the San Francisco premier of the documentary Struggle Recreation. The movie—which I ought to word is codirected by a detailed buddy of mine, Jesse Moss—follows an train performed by a veterans’ group named Vet Voice Basis (VVF). Within the situation they sport out, a presidential candidate refuses to simply accept the 2024 election outcomes. With the assist of some authoritarian-minded generals, the hypothetical candidate prompts paramilitary teams, in addition to breakaway models throughout the Military and state Nationwide Guard models, to forestall Congress’s certification of the Electoral School vote and to take over capitols in key swing states. On this situation, savvy social media denizens, a wholly amoral presidential candidate, and a handful of prime navy brass satisfied that their iron fist is being wielded on the behest of God, are capable of massively amplify their impression and compromise the chain of command, primarily via a classy use of data warfare in opposition to the federal authorities and its beleaguered, insular, president.

The state of affairs envisaged within the one-and-a-half-hour lengthy Struggle Recreation is, after all, a souped-up model of what Trump and his insurrection-minded acolytes unleashed on January 6, 2021. And its premise—that Trump will attempt one thing comparable or worse after the November election—worries sufficient senior figures within the political and navy worlds that VVF had no downside attracting a who’s who of individuals to role-play the president, his senior advisers, and his prime cupboard and navy officers throughout the six-hour warfare sport they undertook. Different teams, too, such because the Brennan Heart for Justice have been quietly gaming out comparable eventualities over the previous few months, involved each that Trump and his followers received’t settle for an electoral defeat and that if he wins he’ll unleash the Rebellion Act in opposition to his opponents. Earlier this 12 months, the Brennan Heart employed prime political journalist Barton Gelman to assist develop safeguards—from authorized methods to public training campaigns to reminding members of the navy that they’ve sworn an oath to defend the Structure—in opposition to Trumpist assaults on the constitutional order.

I received’t spoil Struggle Recreation’s ending right here, however, suffice it to say, the movie must function a wake-up name to those that assume that Trump and the MAGA motion have shouted their final hurrahs in relation to efforts to sabotage the democratic course of.

I requested VVF CEO Janessa Goldbeck and Jesse Moss their ideas, based mostly on what they’d seen whereas making Struggle Recreation, about ongoing vulnerabilities to the democratic course of and the peaceable decision of post-election conflicts. With solely two months to go till the election, their solutions have been sobering.

Goldbeck frightened concerning the viral unfold of mis- and disinformation, pointing to Trump’s current use of social media to repost AI-generated photographs of Taylor Swift followers endorsing him and of Kamala Harris wearing a Soviet uniform. “He’s been leaning into it and amplifying it,” Goldbeck mentioned. She is additional involved by Trump’s repeated refusal to unequivocally state that he’ll abide by an election consequence during which he loses; by native, hard-right GOP efforts to take over historically nonpartisan election administration committees, presumably in an effort to snarl up certification of unfavorable election outcomes; and by the GOP submitting a number of lawsuits in key swing states to problem poll deadlines for mailed–in ballots. In Nevada, present regulation states that these envelopes must be postmarked by Election Day, however the GOP desires to vary the regulation to depend solely ballots acquired by Election Day. “It’s vital to have the ability to communicate frankly concerning the challenges dealing with us,” she says. “Any presidential candidate who refuses to decide to the peaceable switch of energy deserves to be referred to as out. It’s a large break from what we’re used to seeing in relation to elections on this nation.”

For Moss, his movie made him take into consideration the hazards of what he refers to as “normalcy bias,” which is perhaps roughly translated into the soothing notion that “it might probably’t occur right here.” We assume, as a result of we now have lived below a broadly democratic umbrella for thus lengthy, that we are going to all the time dwell that approach. “Our collective unwillingness or incapability to confront the dangers we face,” is especially harmful at this second in US historical past, Moss says, when Trump appears prepared “to impress one thing worse than what we noticed on January 6, 2021.”

Trump has proven, time and again, that he’s at his most harmful and feral when he’s backed right into a nook. Behind in most polls, he faces the very actual chance of shedding in November. Ought to he achieve this, it’s by no means past the bounds of the attainable that he’ll search to foment a January 6 redux. And this time round, his Trumpified political occasion would possibly simply attempt to again him up.