I Played a Game Simulating the Aftermath of the 2028 Election. Here's How It Went.
· Reason
It was mid-November 2028, and American democracy was hanging by a thread.
Democratic Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland was the president-elect, barely. He had won five key swing states by less than 1 percent each. The current occupant of the White House, his political party, and the broader nationalist-conservative movement disputed those results amid unproven allegations of widespread voter fraud in major cities.
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Dark clouds loomed. The vice president, who had been Moore's opponent in the election, was preparing to reject electors from swing states in a potential execution of the power grab that was attempted after the 2020 election. National Guard units that had been deployed in Washington, D.C., for years under the guise of maintaining public order were now being bolstered by militia groups loyal to the president's party. Other units had been dispatched to surround Moore's home—the official story was that he was under "military protection," but it sure looked a lot more like house arrest. There are nine weeks until Inauguration Day, and nothing is sure.
None of this has happened, of course—except within the confines of a trendy Dupont Circle office where, last month, I was one of about two dozen participants in an unsettling role-playing game about the future of American politics.
We'd been brought together by Dmitri Mehlhorn, a Democratic political strategist who fears that many Americans are underestimating the risk of what could unfold during the crucial weeks between the next presidential election and Inauguration Day: January 20, 2029.
He is not particularly subtle about it. Visit the website for the Atoll Society, the organization Mehlhorn cofounded last year and the entity that hosts these gaming salons, and you'll be greeted by a disconcerting declaration: "We don't know whether democratic institutions will survive the next decade."
The role-playing games are less an attempt to determine whether they will, and more an exercise in preparing for how they might all fall apart. As of August, the group has run versions of this game 30 times—in major cities in the U.S. and Europe—with attendees drawn from academia, politics, tech, finance, and media. Each round is more or less a tabula rasa; at the game I attended, only two participants had played previously.
The goal of the exercise, Mehlhorn says, is to move "conversation toward more longer-term scenario planning so that the rule of law can be more resilient in the face of possible future threats."
Gaming Out a Constitutional Crisis
Over glasses of wine and platters of hors d'oeuvres, we were divided into three teams.
The "Institutionalists" and the "Nationalists" represent the two factions competing for political power in a lightly fictionalized version of the United States, where President Wickson is struggling through a second term with an ugly approval rating amid an unpopular war of choice in the Middle East, persistently high inflation, and an ongoing immigration crackdown.
I was, fittingly for a libertarian, part of the third group: the "Capitalists," who are not vying for political power but seeking to maximize profits.
In an era when politics is increasingly intruding into the private sector (and when money can exert at least some power in the political arena), the seven of us assigned to the Capitalist faction faced some difficult choices. Victory for the Nationalists could mean more investment steered toward favored industries, but it also carried the tremendous risk of nationalization and the loss of property rights or profits for those deemed enemies of the regime.
And a civil war in the wake of the 2028 election would be very bad for the bottom line: an outcome to be avoided at all costs.
The game begins in the lead-up to the 2026 midterms and proceeds through several rounds set months apart, with each team given roughly half an hour to decide which moves it wants to make in each round. There are very few limits, and negotiations between the teams are encouraged. After each "round," the moves are fed into the Atoll Society's artificial intelligence engine—effectively the stand-in for the "Dungeon Master," for those familiar with more fantastical role-playing games—that determines which moves succeed or fail, decides who gains or loses power, and sets the state of play for the next round.
In our game, the Nationalists were creative and aggressive. They worked with Republican governors in swing states to grant the federal Department of Justice control over ballots in those places. With taxpayer funds, they recruited cultural conservatives into militia groups, created a federal portal for individuals to request preemptive presidential pardons, and fast-tracked allies into National Guard units along with lots of surplus military equipment.
They also sought to reward their friends as well as punish their enemies. Thanks to some changes to federal regulations for retirement accounts, the Nationalists were able to condition 401(k) eligibility on making political contributions to allied causes—and effectively revoke tax-exempt retirement accounts from those who supported the Institutionalists.
Afterward, Mehlhorn called that one of the most original moves that he'd seen at one of these games. "No money spent, pure administrative law, and it worked," he wrote in an email. Another administrative move—offering preemptive pardons via a new federal website—was a similarly clever mechanism for tightening authoritarian control, he said.
"The most effective moves looked like routine paperwork," he observed. They were more likely to succeed because it is very difficult to push back against executive actions in the modern presidency.
The Institutionalists, who took control of Congress after the 2026 midterms, did what they could. They launched investigations into corruption within the Nationalist administration—and reached out to the Capitalists for help. They kept their focus on political figures and openly broadcast that they would not investigate companies that had been coerced into working with the Nationalist administration.
At my table, our discussions were fraught and probably too cautious. We funded centrist candidates on both sides and financed public campaigns about the value of free elections and property rights, intending to raise the cost of the kind of Nationalist takeover that might result in mass nationalization of our industries.
More radical ideas were discussed but never implemented. One of my fellow Capitalists suggested from the very start that we should take the "exit" option—shifting assets overseas as a bet that things would go very poorly for America—and then sit back to watch the fireworks. At one point, I wondered aloud about the possibility of buying a private army, but no one else seemed to be into the idea. (In a different game, Mehlhorn later told me, the Capitalists did build a private army while promising it would be a Nationalist militia, only to flip at the last minute and use it to overthrow the regime.)
Afterward, one of my fellow Capitalists said the simulation reflected some dynamics playing out in the real world. "Most on the team had a pretty general idea that functioning government means more stability, but I'm not sure industrial leaders think beyond short-term profits and shareholder value," he wrote in an email (the game was played under rules that allowed me to report on the events but not to disclose participants). "I also think that the current political uncertainty is causing many business leaders to hedge and act more cautiously than normal."
The conflicting impulses that slowed us Capitalists—we wanted the rule of law to prevail but felt the need to hedge against appearing too opposed to the Nationalists, lest they punish us—gave me a greater appreciation for the fraught political environment facing American businesses. Do you challenge the administration's tariffs and other constitutionally dubious maneuvers, or go along and try to limit the damage to your bottom line? As a journalist at a libertarian magazine, I can take a stand on principle. In the game, I was managing $430 billion and was tasked with achieving a 9 percent annual return.
How seriously should we take any of this? It was fake money, but I still wanted to win.
What Comes Next?
In June 2020, more than 100 people, including former government officials and campaign staffers, gathered to play a similar live-action role-playing game that attempted to suss out how things might go if President Donald Trump lost that year's election and refused to leave office quietly.
Some of the results might have seemed alarmist at the time, but later proved quite prescient. The group concluded that a winner might not be determined on Election Day (due to the expected large number of mail-in ballots), allowing "an unscrupulous candidate to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the process and to set up an unprecedented assault on the outcome." If the election was close and the outcome contested, the group warned, there could be chaos on January 6, when Congress would certify the Electoral College vote.
But we should also be a bit skeptical. Role-playing games as scenario-planning exercises are not "skeleton key[s]" to the future, as Reason's Jesse Walker wrote in 2024. In many cases, they tell you more about the game's designers and participants than anything else.
Certainly, Mehlhorn is not unbiased. He's a former venture capitalist–turned–campaign strategist who has earned a reputation for doomsaying about Trump and for working to undermine the two-time president. Along with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Mehlhorn helped cover the legal bills of E. Jean Carroll, the writer who was awarded more than $5 million by a jury after she sued Trump over sexual abuse and defamation. The two also helped bankroll an effort to get Trump booted from the presidential ballot in 2024 on the grounds that the 14th Amendment forbids candidates who have engaged in "insurrection" against America. They won at the Colorado Supreme Court, but ultimately failed.
Depending on your point of view, Mehlhorn is either suffering from a terminal case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, or he's the political consulting equivalent of a doomsday prepper—the guy who is already planning for the day after a catastrophe that most people don't even want to contemplate.
The name of his organization reflects that sense: An "atoll" is the ring-shaped island sometimes left behind after an extinct volcano sinks into the ocean.
The fact that Mehlhorn spends a lot of time thinking about explosive scenarios, however, does not necessarily mean he's wrong. After all, Trump and his allies did explore Constitution-cracking legal theories in an attempt to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election. For the past six years, the idea that Trump actually won that election has become an article of faith for the president's allies and supporters.
The next time around, with more time to plan and a vice president who doesn't thwart those efforts, isn't it reasonable to suspect there will be a more serious effort?
Meanwhile, the current administration has routinely pursued policies that invite speculation about its commitment to the rule of law and the peaceful transition of power.
Trump has deployed thousands of National Guard troops to D.C. and refused to remove them despite the lack of any apparent emergency in the city, the city government's request for their dismissal, and a federal court ruling the deployment unlawful. He has promised blanket pardons to everyone in his administration—"I'll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval," Trump reportedly said in April. And he attempted to set up a $1.8 billion fund to pay, among others, those who participated in the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. That effort was blocked when some Republican senators objected to paying taxpayer money to criminals. The Department of Justice dropped the idea, but Trump continues to talk about doing it anyway.
How much of this is Trump's grievance politics and how much is laying the groundwork for something more sinister? It's worrying that no one can say for sure.
Democracy Decided on a Dice Roll
"It is true that storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it, that it brings about consent and reconciliation with things as they really are," observed Hannah Arendt, the 20th century chronicler of oppressive governments.
Set aside the bespoke AI and the randomness created by the digital dice, and it's more obvious that Mehlhorn's real purpose is telling a story. The game is loosely based on The Iron Heel, a 1908 novel by Jack London that envisioned an America that fell victim to a fascist-style regime (years before actual fascism would emerge). He's also written his own novel, Archipelago of Light, which holds itself out as a science-fiction epic about a "dying liberal order."
And as anyone who has ever tried playing Dungeons & Dragons knows, stories can be compelling vehicles for exploring ideas outside of your current reality—even, or especially, if they are scary ideas that demand courage to confront.
Mehlhorn believes it is "roughly 50/50" that Trump will seek the GOP nomination for 2028, despite the 22nd Amendment prohibiting anyone from being elected to more than two terms as president. Right now, betting markets such as Polymarket give Trump about a 2 percent chance of winning the 2028 election, but Mehlhorn believes the chances are at least 10 times higher than that. Not extremely likely, but worth thinking about.
At the Atoll Society's gaming salons, both teams are free to nominate whomever they want.
Sometimes that means incumbent President Wickson seeks a third term, flagrantly disregarding the 22nd Amendment in the process. That comes with a cost (the Nationalists lose 1 percent to 2 percent of the popular vote share), but it boosts recruitment and cohesion among the militias.
In other games, the Nationalists have nominated "Ivanka Wickson" to appeal to suburban women, he says, or Vice President Gustav Krupp. Some games get wilder. "We've had Institutionalists nominate a fictional rural sheriff who later got sworn in on the steps of the Capitol in Sacramento," Mehlhorn says.
Over the course of 30 games, the results have been pretty evenly divided. The Nationalists win some, the Institutionalists win others. Usually the Capitalists side with the winning faction, though they don't always win themselves.
On rare occasions, no one wins.
That's the civil war outcome, in which neither side consolidates power, and the Capitalists flee or are too divided to influence the outcome.
In the version of reality crafted by Mehlhorn's AI, based on the decisions made at that Dupont Circle office on an evening in mid-July, here is how it went.
In the wake of the close, contested election, Krupp moved to invalidate the votes from a number of swing states. Unlike on January 6, 2021, there was no riot at the Capitol as the Electoral College votes were being counted. Instead, the legal shenanigans took place behind a cordon of National Guard units, bolstered by loyalist militias.
Meanwhile, Institutionalists flooded the streets with huge protests. The Capitalists threw a ton of money behind the transition, including bonuses for National Guard troops who deserted. That was enough to break the cordon around the Capitol. There was sporadic violence, but the country did not descend into full-blown civil war. The civil unrest tanked the economy, causing the Capitalists to lose, even as they helped preserve property rights and the liberal order. Wes Moore was eventually sworn in as the 48th president of the United States—perhaps the most unlikely part of the whole thing.
A late push by the Nationalists to seize the assets of Institutionalist-aligned Capitalists failed only because the Nationalists hadn't tried something like that before. If they had, the Overton window would have shifted and given the Nationalists an easier dice roll on that final move—reflecting the reality of a creeping authoritarianism, where each subsequent power grab is made easier by those that come before.
The final, crucial pivot came down to a roll of the dice, Mehlhorn explained afterward.
"January 6 resolved as a single opposed dice roll between the two teams," with a +4 bonus for the Institutionalists that was the result of earlier moves in the game and the late-breaking intervention from the Capitalists, he explained. "Run it again with all the same moves and the Nationalists hold power roughly one time in six."
Yes, it's just a story. Maybe Mehlhorn is a crank.
Still, I'd prefer to live in a reality where the odds of an antidemocratic, authoritarian takeover were much lower—ideally, so low that I didn't have to try to calculate them at all.
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