‘War Game,’ political violence, and the risk of extremism in the armed forces; 1A, WAMU, September 24, 2025

Michael Falero, 1A, WAMU; ‘War Game,’ political violence, and the risk of extremism in the armed forces

"One of the hallmarks of American democracy is upholding the principle of the peaceful transfer of power. Key to that principle is the word “peaceful.”

On Jan. 6, 2021 that principle was tested. Insurrectionists, some organized, tried and failed to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election.

What if that violence happened in a future American election? What if extremist groups who felt democracy was at risk included a small number of active members of the military or National Guard? 

A new documentary, “War Game,” follows an effort to play out that scenario, to see how bipartisan participants, including former politicians and retired military officers, would react to election violence from a fake White House situation room. 

What are the risks in responding to violence around an election outcome? How would that situation become more complicated if a handful of members of the military were involved in trying to overturn an election? And how common is it for extremism to enter the ranks of branches of the military?

We discuss those questions and the film, spoiler free.

Janessa Goldbeck

CEO, Vet Voice Foundation

Jesse Moss

co-director and producer, “War Game"

Nikki Wentling

disinformation and extremism reporter, The Military Times...

• [Interviewer Jen White] So we hear there from your own experience, Janessa, that part of this exercise is about your experience with your father, and you connect it to the weakening of democratic institutions. If this is an exercise looking at the strength of our institutions, like our branches of government, what did you take away from the scenario about their resilience in the face of political violence and the resilience of the leaders within those institutions?

• 
  

  [Janessa Goldbeck, CEO, Vet Voice Foundation]

  You know, one thing that folks always come up to me after screenings, about is is this part of the film in particular. So many Americans around the country are facing a deep divide within their own homes. Someone in their family who is, very invested in a conspiracy theory or an ideology that feels completely alien. You know, and I obviously have experienced that with my own father. I think a lot of people have some a family member, someone they love that, is ascribed to a belief system that feels just impossible to wrap your your hands around. And I think that's something that isn't necessarily going to be solved by government alone. It's something that we need to invest in, programs and ways that we can actually just kinda build bridges in this country. I think, you know, that surgeon general of the United States for the first time has declared loneliness an epidemic in this country. And I think that some of that loneliness is is building is providing or or fueling this need for people to connect, and they find that connection, in spaces where conspiracy theories and extremist ideology flourish. So I don't know that it's necessarily a problem for government to solve on its own. It's certainly a challenge. I don't have all the answers, but I think more conversation is required, and war game is a provocation for that conversation."

Life amid the ruinsof QAnon: ‘I wanted my family back’; The Washington Post, February 23, 2021

Greg Jaffe and 

Jose A. Del Real

, The Washington Post ; Life amid the ruins of QAnon: ‘I wanted my family back’ An epidemic of conspiracy theories, fanned by social media and self-serving politicians, is tearing families apart.

"Like many conspiracy theories, QAnon supplied a good-versus-evil narrative into which complicated world events could be easily incorporated. “Especially during the pandemic, Q provided a structure to explain what was going on,” said Mike Rothschild, author of “The Storm Is Upon Us,” which documents QAnon’s rise.

And it offered believers a sense of meaning and purpose. “We want to believe that we matter enough [that someone wants] to crush us,” Rothschild said. “It’s comforting to think that the New World Order would single us out for destruction.”

A big part of what made it novel was that it was interactive, allowing its followers to take part in the hunt for clues as if they were playing a video game. Social media algorithms, built to capture and keep consumers’ attention, helped expand the pool of hardcore believers by leading curious individuals to online groups of believers and feeding them fresh QAnon conspiracy theories."

Pizzagate’s violent legacy; The Washington Post, February 16, 2021

 Michael E. Miller, The Washington Post; Pizzagate’s violent legacy

The gunman who terrorized a D.C. pizzeria is out of prison. The QAnon conspiracy theories he helped unleash are out of control.

"Alefantis had hoped Pizzagate would be the end of the baseless claims, but it had been only the beginning. The sickness had spread to members of Congress. The fraying social fabric had snapped completely.

He still believed that the country would get through the madness. But he was no longer surprised when people came to Comet, screaming hate and searching for something, as Welch had, that did not exist.

“It’s not just a pizza place,” a male protester shouted into a megaphone on Jan. 19. "It’s a pedophilia place as well.”And so Alefantis did what he had done four years earlier, when the same group first showed up. He pumped music from Comet’s outdoor speakers to drown them out, and customers began to dance.

As Lady Gaga’s “Perfect Illusion” boomed, Alefantis greeted the picketers with a tray of champagne. A protester stepped forward, grabbed a coupe and poured it onto the sidewalk.

Then he tipped over the tray, and all the champagne came tumbling down in a riot of broken glass."

The Librarian War Against QAnon; The Atlantic, February 18, 2021

 Barbara Fister; The Atlantic; 

The Librarian War Against QAnon

As “Do the research” becomes a rallying cry for conspiracy theorists, classical information literacy is not enough.

"We are experiencing a moment that is exposing a schism between two groups: those who have faith that there is a way to arrive at truth using epistemological practices that originated during the Enlightenment, and those who believe that events and experiences are portents to be interpreted in ways that align with their personal values."

Trump Fans Are Suckers and QAnon Is Perfect for Them; The Daily Beast, August 3, 2018

Rick Wilson, The Daily Beast; Trump Fans Are Suckers and QAnon Is Perfect for Them

"Conspiracies are hard. They're even harder when you're stupid.

They are, however, deeply compelling. Some people need a single, grand unifying theory of why the world refuses to line up with their expectations. When difficult realities confront people without the intellectual horsepower to understand and accept the truth, some turn to conspiracy theories to paper over the holes in their worldview. No matter how absurd, baroque, and improbable, conspiracies grow on their own like mental kudzu where inconsistencies aren't signs of illogical conclusions, but of another, deeper layer of some hidden truth, some skein of powerful forces holding the world in its grip...

[Q] works because stupid people are stupid and because Donald Trump's Administration loves what QAnon does to stoke the fires of paranoia, resentment, and division. QAnon works for Trump because people who are not knowledgeable about the world, politics, government, the intelligence community and reality more broadly are desperately looking for confirmation that they're on the winning team. Q tells them that they're on the right side of history and that for once in their dreary little lives they and only they possess the secret, hermetic knowledge from inside the esoteric cult."

What is QAnon? Explaining the bizarre rightwing conspiracy theory; The Guardian, July 30, 2018

Julia Carrie Wong, The Guardian; What is QAnon? Explaining the bizarre rightwing conspiracy theory

"Meet Q

On 28 October 2017, “Q” emerged from the primordial swamp of the internet on the message board 4chan. In a thread called “Calm Before the Storm”, and in subsequent posts, Q established his legend as a government insider with top security clearance who knew the truth about a secret struggle for power involving Donald Trump, the “deep state”, Robert Mueller, the Clintons, pedophile rings, and other stuff.

Since then, Q has continued to drop “breadcrumbs” on 4chan and 8chan, fostering a “QAnon” community devoted to decoding Q’s messages and understanding the real truth about, well, everything...

Imagine a mix of Pizzagate, InfoWars and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, multiplied by the power of the internet...

For years now, YouTube has been a quagmire of conspiracy theories, the more outrageous and thinly sourced the better. Under pressure from the mainstream media for the platform’s tendency to promote inflammatory and false information in the aftermath of mass shootings and other breaking news events, YouTube has introduced reforms that it claims will promote more “authoritative” news sources.

A YouTube spokesperson provided a statement that did not directly address the Guardian’s questions about the Hanks videos, but noted that the company’s work to “better surface and promote news and authoritative sources” is “still in its early stages”."

What Is QAnon: Explaining the Internet Conspiracy Theory That Showed Up at a Trump Rally; The New York Times, August 1, 2018

Justin Bank, Liam Stack and Daniel Victor, The New York Times;

What Is QAnon: Explaining the Internet Conspiracy Theory That Showed Up at a Trump Rally

 

"Why should I care about a fringe corner of the internet?

Because QAnon is not limited to a fringe corner of the internet. In addition to its front-and-center presence at Mr. Trump’s rally, it has been promoted by celebrities including Roseanne Barr and Curt Schilling, the former baseball star who has a podcast for Breitbart.

The paranoid worldview has crossed over from the internet into the real world several times in recent months. On more than one occasion, people believed to be followers of QAnon have shown up — sometimes with weapons — in places that the character told them were somehow connected to anti-Trump conspiracies.

“The biggest danger is you are one mentally unstable person away from the next massive incident that defines whatever happens next,” Mr. Decker said. “The next Pizzagate, which for better or worse did define the political conversation for a while.”"

‘We are Q’: A deranged conspiracy cult leaps from the Internet to the crowd at Trump’s ‘MAGA’ tour; The Washington Post, August 1, 2018

Isaac Stanley-Becker, The Washington Post; ‘We are Q’: A deranged conspiracy cult leaps from the Internet to the crowd at Trump’s ‘MAGA’ tour

"The thread invited “requests to Q,” an anonymous user claiming to be a government agent with top security clearance, waging war against the so-called deep state in service to the 45th president. “Q” feeds disciples, or “bakers,” scraps of intelligence, or “bread crumbs,” that they scramble to bake into an understanding of the “storm” — the community’s term, drawn from Trump’s cryptic reference last year to “the calm before the storm” — for the president’s final conquest over elites, globalists and deep-state saboteurs.

What Tuesday’s rally in Tampa made apparent is that devotees of these falsehoods — some of which are specific to faith in the president, others garden-variety nonsense with racist and anti-Semitic undertones — don’t just exist in the far reaches of the Web."