Doomsday “preparation” is entering the mainstream as Americans of all ages and political persuasions grow increasingly worried ahead of the 2024 presidential election about the prospect of civil war.
Stockpiling food, water and weapons was once associated with libertarian extremists, but as a rematch between President Biden and his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, seems inevitable in 2024, preparations have become a bipartisan activity, according to a Monday USA Today report.
“On the left, you have people who are afraid (Trump) is going to declare himself dictator of the United States and people on the left are going to be targeted in some kind of authoritarian system,” author Brad Garrett told the paper.
“On the right, it’s a sense of malaise and the community’s fear of unraveling. They point to these looting, riots and protests.”
Brekke Wagoner, 39, of North Carolina runs a YouTube channel offering advice to younger, more liberal urbanites on how to prepare for a major disaster.
He worries that if Trump is re-elected, he will fumble his response to hurricanes or other natural disasters caused by climate change — referring to his administration’s handling of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Our natural storm season alliance is the number one thing that’s going to happen to you,” he reportedly said.
According to reports, young Americans on the right and the left have been stockpiling guns and other supplies ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
“Electromagnetic pulses that take out the electrical grid can happen. Nuclear war can happen. Civil war can happen. But storms will happen.”
Wagoner has a 90-day supply of food for his family of six in case of a similar emergency.
“If you can be prepared, you won’t spend the resources needed to help people who are not prepared,” he told the newspaper.
“In the face of the apocalypse, I want to go out and calmly help people,” he said. “I want to be able to create a society that instead of wanting to shoot every stranger, understand our interdependence and create a better society.”
Not every prepper is influenced by altruism. Retired US Air Force Colonel Drew Miller has built seven “Fortitude Ranch” compounds across the country, stocked with food, propane, whiskey, solar panels, wells and plenty of guns and ammunition.
Its members, who pay at least $1,200 a year, are reportedly prepared to flee to the nearest compound in the event of war, nuclear explosions or protesting mobs, and shoot any “robbers” who approach its log walls.
“We’re going to have some good meals here come fall,” Miller said, giving USA Today a tour of his modest lodgings in southern Colorado.
“We guarantee food for a year, but not toilet paper.”
The complex has an armored guard post, sniper positions and an underground bunker for about 100 of its members.
According to the report, many left-leaning preppers fear the re-election of former President Donald Trump could lead to a dictatorship. REUTERS/Mark Makela
Miller showed off the weapons available to members, including a .50 caliber rifle to fire at approaching vehicles, hunting rifles and a group of handguns.
In the event of an apocalypse scenario, Miller said his group of survivors would be positioned to capitalize on widespread urban death and concentrate wealth and resources, not unlike what happened when the Black Death killed up to 200 million people in the 1300s.
“I want middle-class Americans to survive and we make it possible to do that,” Miller said. “I think eventually things will turn around – and I want to live for that.”
Many of Miller’s clients signed up during the widespread racial justice protests and civil unrest that followed the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.
Police in riot gear outside the Capitol on September 18, 2021. Recent protests have inspired some people to start preparing, according to the report. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
While most of the protests were peaceful, Trump threatened to send in the military to quell the protesters as many major cities suffered property damage.
“There could be a civil war during the Biden-Trump election,” he said, adding that his group is non-political and pointed out that many of its members are ex-military and trained in survival.
Over the past year, younger Americans have overtaken Baby Boomers and Gen Xers in preparing for the doomsday scenario, which has grown into an $11 billion annual business in the US, according to Finder.com.
About 39% of Millennials and 40% of Gen Z have spent money on the practice in the past 12 months, compared to 29% of the entire US adult population, the spending analytics website said.
In 2017, several years before the COVID-19 pandemic, only about 25% of Americans had stocked up on survival supplies, according to the website.
An anti-vaccine mandate protest on the Brooklyn Bridge on February 7, 2022. According to one expert, the rise of doomsday preparations can be linked to a declining trust in government. Alec Tabak for the NY Post)
The recent statistics can be explained by the increasing anxiety of society. A recent USA Today/Suffolk University poll found that more than two-thirds of Americans believe the world is in greater trouble than usual or in the most troubled state they have ever seen.
Prof. Chad Huddleston, an anthropologist at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, said the surge in preparations is the result of a growing loss of faith in government among younger and more liberal people.
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“On the one hand, people think Trump might bring a New World Order and ‘they’ will come and get us so we have to be prepared,” Huddleston reportedly said.
“And then instead you have a community that thinks things are going to get worse, so we have to help ourselves.”
Garrett, who interviewed hundreds of preppers for his 2020 book “Bunker,” says many of the less hardline preppers are younger liberals who are shocked by the epidemic and protests of police brutality.
“We have this authoritarian pattern running on the right side and setting up a game for that. They are prepared for violence, no question,” Garrett told the outlet.
“But you also see the rise of militancy on the left. I see a lot of liberal preppers buying guns, saying they waited too long. It’s an unfortunate arms race that I think we’re going to see escalate as we head into the election, especially if it’s Trump vs. Biden.”
Many of Garrett’s younger interview subjects worry that a second Trump administration will veer autocratically and undermine the effects of climate change.
“You see a lot of people who don’t worry about the apocalypse but if the power goes out for three days,” he said. “You see more preparation but less extreme preparation.”
Wagoner, for his part, rejects a fear-based approach and encourages preparedness to think about preparing for “community survival.”
“My perspective is that we are better together,” he said, adding that “Jesus would slap anyone who has food and refuses to help their starving neighbor.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
