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Pundits speculated that Doug Jones, the former U.S. Senator from Alabama, might be picked as the U.S. attorney general in the administration of Joe Biden.
Biden ultimately selected Merrick Garland, but Jones got an opportunity to play out the role for six hours on Jan. 6, 2023 during a simulated coup attempt involving rogue members of the U.S. military and National Guard.
Vet Voice Foundation, who produced the simulation, filmed the experiment and released it as a documentary film War Game at the Sundance Film Festival in January this year. The film is now available for streaming and will have showings at the Sidewalk Film Center in Birmingham Oct. 18-20 and Oct. 24.
“First of all, I think it’s a reminder of how close we came to really losing our democracy on Jan. 6, 2021,” Jones said. “We’re seeing a lot of revisionist history right now about what happened, how it happened and why it happened. People need to be reminded of that; we don’t want that kind of event to repeat itself. We need to continue to be vigilant and remind folks of what is at stake in this election.”
In the simulation, the election of President John Hotham (played by former Montana governor Steve Bullock), is being challenged by opposing candidate Robert Strickland after losing the election by a narrow margin. As Strickland and his supporters call for violence to prevent the certification of votes, Hotham must work with he others in his situation room, including Jones, to identify threats and choose a course of action.
Meanwhile, a “red cell” of individuals playing the part of Strickland supporters are doing what they can to create chaos and bait officials into overreacting.
While the officials are busy trying to contend with physical threats, a member of the red cell notes that their flood of misinformation is going mostly unchecked.
“I was the one complaining most about that in the film,” Jones said. “We had one arm tied behind our back in trying to deal with that. But it’s a prelude to where things are right now. AI has just skyrocketed in the last two years since we filmed that; now, one of those things that this film does is just raise awareness that these things happen. Hopefully it’s going to prepare us for these kinds of disruptions.”
While the film focused primarily on the president’s situation room and whether he would invoke the Insurrection Act or federalize the National Guard, Jones said his role in parallel was developing the beginnings of criminal investigations. That part of the simulation gets little to no airtime in the film but will still be used as part of a confidential analysis of the game being shared with D.C. insiders.
