The future you're about to see may only be moments away.
President Trump has frequently criticized American cities, including San Francisco, as “unlivable.”
“Something must be done before it is too late,” he’s said. “Next time, I’m not waiting.”
The president has vowed to invoke the broad powers of the Insurrection Act, sending in troops to suppress protest, assert authority, and enforce deportations.
If he makes good on this pledge, the following scenario might also become real, stories of occupation and resistance across San Francisco—or any American city in defiance.
It could start next year, or next month—or next week. One weekend of unrest is enough to set this story in motion.
Even as local authorities quickly regain control, viral images of flames create an impression of urban chaos.
San Francisco, already an “enemy” of the Trump administration, braces for an overwhelming federal response.
By the next evening, the President declares San Francisco “ungovernable” and orders troops to “reclaim the city.”
“The people,” he predicts, “will be so grateful.”
The local response is immediate: a protest march, expected to be the largest in decades. The city's diverse, and often divided, communities quickly unite against the coming crackdown on democracy and dissent.
Point of no return
The largest protest in San Francisco since the Vietnam War erupted yesterday as an estimated 150,000 marched against President Trump’s invocation of the Insurrection Act targeting the city. They were met by hundreds of troops, many arriving only hours earlier, who used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd, injuring at least 241 people. A new citywide curfew appears to mark the beginning of an military presence.
“Watch—tomorrow they’ll say it was actually a scene of ‘escalating uncertainty.’ But anyone who was there saw ordinary people peacefully defending American values. When the clashes started, I stopped wondering if this was real and suddenly realized everything was about to change.”
As the crackdown unfolds, the real goal becomes clear...
Mission objectives
General Marc Kershaw stands at San Francisco City Hall to announce “Operation Golden Glory” following President Trump's invocation of the Insurrection Act targeting the city. The president's broad directive—quell protests, restore order, aid deportations—has stirred fears of a de facto federal occupation.
“I couldn’t help but wonder if this is how it starts—symbols swapped overnight, a general standing where the mayor should be. His words were all about cooperation, but I kept thinking, ‘If this is cooperation, then what the hell will control feel like?’ ”
The visitors quickly make their presence known...
Occupation inbound
Troops commandeer San Francisco’s iconic Powell-Hyde cable cars for military transport. Local leaders condemn the move as a blatant display of dominance, while a guerrilla network of transit workers reportedly scrambles to sabotage operations.
“America has always had a love/hate thing with San Francisco. Many are cheering the crackdown, convinced we had it coming. But even these haters are now like, ‘…wait, not the cable cars!’ Who knew this might become the line in the sand?”
But protest itself is soon a punishable offense...
Denying democracy
Protesters scatter downtown as a military Humvee deploys the Active Denial System, a microwave-based weapon that induces brief-yet-excruciating pain. Designed for overseas crowd control, the technology has now made its domestic debut in San Francisco. Civil rights groups warn its use against legal demonstrations signals a chilling disregard for constitutional freedoms.
“I kept thinking: this wasn’t about breaking up a protest—it was about breaking the protesters themselves. Like Pavlovian obedience training, hoping we’ll roll over and play dead for the next power grab.”
For many, the stakes are even higher...
Papers, please
Rosa, 62, clutches her granddaughter as soldiers demand information at her Mission District home. As city and state sanctuary policies impede federal access to local jails, military units now scour neighborhoods, fraying the community's social fabric and leaving neighbors wary of each other and fearful of informants.
“I first noticed her outstretched arms, somewhere between a hug and a plea. But the soldiers were just as unsure as the girl. I later learned that Rosa refused to answer any of their questions, standing her ground in an act of quiet defiance.”
The scale of arrests begins to reshape the city...
Parks & requiem
Hundreds of arrested protestors are held in a makeshift detention center quickly erected in Dolores Park. Detainees report being subjected to biometric scans and extensive photographing, sparking fears of a permanent federal registry targeting dissenters—a digital ‘blacklist’.
“The sign caught my eye first—‘Civic Processing Center‘—a euphemism so sanitized that it completely masked the horror inside. Everyone used to gather in the park to celebrate life. Now it’s like hope itself got evicted too.”
Solidarity soon reaches far beyond city limits...
A State of union
Rio, 19, holds up a California flag amidst smoke and chaos in downtown San Francisco. They are one of hundreds reported to have traveled here from across the state to join local resistance networks.
“Rio casually said home was Bakersfield, like it was no big to drive hundreds of miles into a war zone. ‘This is all California's fight,’ they told me with such a sense of conviction. I couldn’t stop thinking about how this youngest generation’s first war is against their own government.”
And some just have defiance in their DNA...
Fierce resistance
Soldiers detain drag queen “Col. Lateral Glamage” during a satirical protest in San Francisco’s Castro District. Numerous reports suggest that the ill-defined scope of the military's mission here has emboldened homophobia and transphobia among troops, fueling targeted harassment and detentions in LGBTQ+ spaces.
“This is what queerness knows: how to survive, how to resist, how to thrive. The Colonel didn’t surrender—she turned this moment into proof that we will outlast them.”
As barriers rise in the city of bridges...
Gated community
A soldier inspects the green card of a woman at a gated checkpoint in San Francisco’s Richmond District. Witnesses report that even legal residents are being harassed under vague accusations of fraudulent documentation. As barricades and checkpoints multiply, residents fear a future where every move requires military approval.
“Her ID said she belonged, but the gate and interrogation said otherwise. Every interaction with them feels like a test with no right answers . How long can people hold out when the rules aren’t just unfair—they’re unknowable?”
When your new home starts looking like the one you fled...
Land of the free
Rana, 21, grips the fence of a detention camp in Duboce Park. Her family fled Syria years ago, escaping a regime known for crushing dissent with mass arrests and indefinite detention. Now, after being arrested during a peaceful student protest yesterday, she finds herself facing the same tactics here.
“I got as close to the fence as I could without drawing attention. Her anger was evident, but even stronger was her sense of betrayal: ‘We came here to escape brutal authority. How is this any different?’"
Only here could resistance take such unexpected forms...
A habit of defiance
Sister Chaos Divine, a member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, applies makeup to a deserting soldier inside a San Francisco safe house. The disguises are part of an underground effort to help AWOL troops evade arrest and facial recognition surveillance. Resistance sources say the number of deserters has steadily increased as doubts about the mission grow.
“Sister Divine joked that her makeup line should be named ‘Queer as in F*ck You.’ The Sisters were born here in SF, baptized in resistance, and now hear a new calling to help save the city's—and the country's—soul.”
Across town, they had thought they were safe...
Collateral damage
A toddler sits amidst the wreckage of a mistaken raid on his family’s Excelsior home in San Francisco. Federal troops, acting on faulty intelligence, admitted to targeting the wrong address, one of many errors eroding support for the operation as its indiscriminate nature becomes clear.
“The kid looked at me with eyes full of questions I couldn’t answer. ‘If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear,’ we’ve been told over and over. But this raid proved that when power is unaccountable, no one is safe.”
Fear is no longer a consequence, it's the goal...
Disappearing act
Eduardo, 62, adds his daughter Maria’s photo to a Mission District wall covered with faces of protesters and undocumented immigrants detained by the military. Each photo is a story of resistance or refuge, both now criminalized for the foreseeable future.
“Every photo up there felt like a warning: don't make waves and don't forget your place. The goal wasn’t just to control protests today; it was to make us too afraid to even think about joining one tomorrow.”
This city never breaks, it only burns brighter...
Oro en Paz, Fierro en Guerra
Through a haze of smoke and tear gas, a protestor raises the unofficial ‘Fog & Gold’ flag of San Francisco, a symbol of defiance on a night of widespread insurgency. Hours earlier, resistance fighters crippled military communications, leaving troops disoriented and retreating. Whether this marks a turning point or a fleeting triumph remains to be seen.
“She lifted the flag and it hit me: this place doesn't endure, it defies, for hundreds of years. Anyone who counts out the people of San Francisco just doesn't know our story or our spirit.”
About the Project
Insurrection: An American Future is an urgent work of speculative fiction that examines the potential consequences of deploying military force into American cities. Based on documented plans and credible reporting, it portrays a disturbingly plausible scenario: the unprecedented domestic use of federal troops under the Insurrection Act, transforming an emergency power into a tool to silence protest and undermine democratic governance.
Told through a series of 15 immersive, photojournalistic scenes, the project captures both large-scale confrontations and intimate human moments in San Francisco under military occupation. These images ground abstract political concepts in emotional reality, making tangible what might otherwise remain theoretical. The narrative explores how diverse communities respond when facing extraordinary challenges to civil liberties, weaving together stories of institutional failure, community resilience, and individual courage.
Central to this exploration is the Insurrection Act itself, a dangerously ambiguous executive authority often described as “a loaded gun for any president.” Historically reserved for grave threats to national stability, evidence from across the political spectrum suggests President Trump and his advisors envision dramatically expanding its domestic application—effectively weaponizing it against constitutionally protected dissent.
Methodologically, Insurrection combines generative AI with detailed digital illustration to create images that feel immediate and believable. It reflects how emerging tools, when used with vision and intention, can support storytellers in shaping nuanced visual narratives that are hard to imagine yet impossible to ignore. These technologies make space for new voices to communicate excluded or overlooked futures that might otherwise go unseen.
Insurrection: An American Future is not just about what could happen. It’s about what’s already unfolding—and how quickly the inconceivable can become inevitable.
Please note: Insurrection: An American Future is a work of speculative fiction. All scenarios, images, and narratives represent potential rather than predicted futures. While informed by credible reporting and expert analysis, the work does not claim to forecast specific events. All depicted persons, organizations, and scenarios are fictional constructs created to explore constitutional and civic questions.
Contact
For general feedback:
info [at] insurrectionactfuture [dot] org
For media inquiries:
media [at] insurrectionactfuture [dot] org
About the Creator
Jason Tester is a strategic futurist and speculative designer whose work explores the human consequences of political, technological, and social transformation. For over twenty years, he has used visual and immersive storytelling to make abstract future possibilities more understandable, accessible, and emotionally resonant for diverse audiences.
Tester has been a leading figure in the field of speculative design since the practice began to take shape. At the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, where he served as research director for a decade, Tester helped lead the organization's experimentation with and transition to new media and narrative formats. His work has encompassed hundreds of "artifacts from the future”—what-if postcards, news broadcasts, product prototypes, and first-person accounts that reflect an array of emerging technologies, social phenomena, and cultural shifts. These creations have enabled organizations, governments, and communities to viscerally experience how their decisions could shape, and be shaped by, possible futures.
Most recently, Tester has incorporated generative AI tools into his practice which, combined with decades of experience as a digital illustrator, enable him to prototype future worlds, alternate histories, and parallel realities with unprecedented complexity and visual fidelity. Tester is a fierce advocate for democratizing futurism—expanding whose ideas about the future get heard and making the creation of compelling future narratives accessible beyond corporate and institutional settings.
Originally from the Midwest, Jason has lived in San Francisco for 21 years.
References
Charlie Savage, Jonathan Swan, and Maggie Haberman. “Deploying on U.S. Soil: How Trump Would Use Soldiers Against Riots, Crime and Migrants” New York Times, August 17 2024
William A. Galston. “Fix the Insurrection Act Before a Trump Inauguration” Wall Street Journal, February 27 2024
David French. “It’s Time to Fix America’s Most Dangerous Law” New York Times, December 3 2023
Alex Tausanovitch. "The Dangers of Deploying the Military on U.S. Soil" Lawfare, September 12, 2024
Joseph Nunn. “Trump Wants to Use the Military Against His Domestic Enemies. Congress Must Act.” Brennan Center for Justice, November 17 2023
Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey, and Devlin Barrett. “Trump and Allies Plot Revenge, Justice Department Control in a Second Term” The Washington Post, November 6 2023
Brett Wagner. “Trump Said He Plans to Declare Martial Law. Here’s What That Would Look Like” San Francisco Chronicle, January 31 2024
Gary Fields. “Trump Hints at Expanded Role for the Military Within the US. A Legacy Law Gives Him Few Guardrails” AP News, November 26 2023
Joe Gould. “Trump Wants to Send Troops to the Inner Cities. A Top Senator Wants to Rein Him In” Politico, January 24 2024
Charlie Savage and Michael Gold. “Trump Confirms Plans to Use the Military to Assist in Mass Deportations” New York Times, November 18 2024
Tim Elfrink. “Safety and Ethics Worries Sidelined a ‘Heat Ray’ for Years. The Feds Asked About Using It on Protesters” The Washington Post, September 17 2020
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