January 6, 2021, was a terrifying day for many people across the world as thousands marched on the Capitol Building in Washington. As elected politicians fled or hid in the building, the FBI estimated that a couple of thousand protesters entered the building.
The performance company American Vicarious has created a game show around those events, with participants divided into either the blue police team or the red protester team. They are then allocated to a particular section of the table in mini groups of about six.
The show opens with a briefing in which they are each given the name of an actual participant with some background as to their views. The protesters included various far-right political groups such as The Proud Boys, The Oath Keepers and the followers of QAnon.
The host of the event is Dana Watkins, as an Uncle Sam figure dressed in a top hat and red, white and blue suit, addressing people sometimes from a balcony, at other times from various locations in the room. The participant chosen to be the protester, Christine Priola, carrying a placard bearing the slogan “The Children Cry Out for Justice”, leads everyone in song, the words of which appear on screens above the action.
In the centre of the room is a huge table upon which sits an impressive fourteen-foot replica of the Capitol Building. Around it are lines of miniature police figures, and beyond them lines of protesters. Moves are decided by the participants using dice and cards they are given. Police can choose when they use tear gas. A hooter goes off when that happens. At various times during the event, protesters are encouraged to chant “Hang Mike Pence”. There are one blue and three red referees from the performance company to nudge things along via the rules or by cheating.
At a certain stage, when the Capitol Building has been breached, everyone switches to a separate table bearing an imagined replica of the internal rooms of the Capitol, in one of which is Vice President Mike Pence. Participants are asked to choose a room, and this results in some finding Pence. Dice are then thrown to decide if reds or blues get to decide what happens next. The referees cheat to make sure the Reds win. The Red teams then take a vote on whether Mike Pence should be protected and escorted out of the building or hanged. The majority, smiling, voted that he be hanged. The event concludes with film footage of protester brutality against the police. Nothing is shown of police brutality against protesters.
I asked one of the game's creators what he hoped it would achieve. He replied that it would demonstrate that democracy was competitive. One of the red referees said that it showed that people have the power to decide what happens in the world.
The event went smoothly, with the organisers sprinkling it with Trump quotes on the screen and conversations with those involved. It engaged the participants (I chose to be an observer), who left the event smiling. I’m not sure it helped anyone understand why the protests occurred or what should be done to avoid them in future.
Trump declined to call in the National Guard to support the police dealing with the January 6 protest. Over a thousand protesters were convicted of the Capitol Building attack. In January this year, the newly elected Trump pardoned all but nine Oath Keepers and five Proud Boys, whose prison sentences were commuted so they could leave prison. The chair of the Proud Boys, Henry Tarrio, who had been sentenced to 22 years in prison, was among those pardoned. Invited to a meal by a Mar-a-Lago club member, he thanked Trump for the pardon. The President reportedly said, "I love you guys.” Recently, Trump sent the armed National Guard into Los Angeles to deal with the small non-violent protests about Trump’s persecution of migrants.