Posted on 03/28/2024 6:10:39 AM PDT by MtnClimber
A growing number of conservatives are preparing for the end of the world. With the threat from nuclear war, another global pandemic, a devastating cyber-attack, or a host of other potential disasters seemingly higher than at any point in decades, more and more Americans, particularly on the right, have turned to the “prepper movement” to brace for a doomsday scenario.
History Of The Prepper Movement
The idea of “prepping” first entered American culture during the Cold War with the looming specter of nuclear holocaust. Soon after taking office in 1960, President John F. Kennedy began encouraging Americans to build bomb shelters. Books such as Retreater’s Bibliography, written by Don Stephens in 1967, further increased the popularity of making elaborate preparations for long-term survival in the event of societal collapse.
As the prepping movement grew, it began to splinter into traditional preppers and a new group known as “survivalists.” As one popular prepping blog explains, “Preppers tend to focus on accumulating supplies and planning for specific scenarios. They are systematic, packing their homes with essentials like food, water, and medical supplies.”
Survivalists, meanwhile, “emphasize skill development and adaptability. They are the ones who can start a fire without matches, build a shelter from natural materials, and forage for food in the wild.”
The Y2K scare in the late 1990s brought prepping back into the spotlight. Americans concerned that a computer glitch caused by the calendar flipping from December 31, 1999, to January 1, 2000, could cause banks to collapse, nuclear reactors to melt down, planes to fall out of the sky, and a host of other calamities, began publishing Y2K-specific survival guides and building entire bunker complexes.
But as the new millennium passed without incident, prepping became the butt of many jokes, while the preppers themselves were increasingly viewed as out-of-touch conspiracy theorists.
This perception was not aided by the National Geographic show “Doomsday Preppers,” which aired from 2012 to 2014. The reality TV series profiled dozens of individuals and families who took prepping to the extreme. Many preppers believe the series went out of its way to paint their movement in a negative light.
The Mainstreaming Of The Prepper Movement
In recent years, however, prepping has become far more mainstream. The panic and empty store shelves that gripped the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic seem to have been a stark reminder for many Americans that systems that once seemed sturdy can break down completely in a matter of days.
In total, researchers estimate the prepping movement has more than doubled in size to about 20 million Americans just since 2017. Prepping conventions have grown in popularity throughout the country, with preppers gathering by the thousands to share skills and purchase survival goods.
As The New York Post recently reported, preppers spent $11 billion on disaster preparedness in 2022, stockpiling everything from ammo to toilet paper. This surge has fueled the growth of companies such as SOS Survival Products, which provides first aid supplies marketed specifically to preppers, and ReadyWise, which advertises dehydrated food with a shelf life of up to 25 years.
Other companies such as Fortitude Ranch are building off-the-grid compounds where members, who pay a monthly fee, can retreat to for up to a year in the event of an emergency – a sort of prepper insurance policy. Fortitude’s latest development in Nevada advertises “gravity-fed, ice-cold water” and “huge solar arrays providing free year-round electricity.”
Prepping social media pages are also exploding in popularity. The “r/prepper” Reddit page has 423,000 members and ranks among the top 1 percent of all pages on the site. The account “housewifeprepper” has 352,000 followers on Instagram, while “survival nature tips” boasts 1.1 million followers. Many videos and posts across social media platforms highlighting popular “prepper tips” have racked up millions of views.
Conservatives Double Down
As it has been since its inception, prepping remains particularly popular among conservatives. One journalist who spoke with 39 preppers back in 2014 reported that 35 of them self-identified as conservative. William Forstchen’s 2009 novel One Second After, which theorizes about the fallout from an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the United States has enjoyed a cult following on the right.
For many right-of-center Americans, general distrust in the federal government and pessimism about the rise of the welfare state is more than enough reason to believe in the need to be prepared for anything.
But recently, new threats may also be driving a new generation of conservatives to the prepping lifestyle. The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the potential risks of globalized supply chains and raised fears of future pandemics that could be far more deadly. Cyber-attacks could also turn society upside down at any time, and the world appears closer to nuclear conflict than at any time since the Cold War.
This has been reflected in advertising in conservative media. Right-wing commentator Sebastian Gorka, for instance, has heavily promoted “My Patriot Supply,” a company that sells emergency food with a long shelf life. “We believe it’s every person’s patriotic duty to achieve TRUE FREEDOM from our world’s increasingly unreliable and fragile systems,” the company’s website reads.
Preppers also place a heavy emphasis on having stockpiles of firearms and ammunition, putting them in ideological alignment with conservatives and Second Amendment advocates. Because preppers want to be prepared for all-out societal collapse, many prefer AR-15-style rifles and other similar firearms that Democrats refer to as “assault weapons” and believe should be banned.
Conservative politicians may also be helping popularize the prepper movement. Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie has built his own self-sustaining off-grid home, powered by batteries from a wrecked Tesla. Roscoe Bartlett, who served 20 years in Congress as a Republican from Maryland, spent years warning about the vulnerability of the U.S. power grid and now lives in a remote cabin in the woods. In February, Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio also warned that a Chinese cyberattack could shut down everything from cell phone towers to the power grid for vast swaths of the country.
Liberals & Young People Join The Movement
While the prepper movement has indeed been one traditionally dominated by older, conservative Americans, liberals, and young people are increasingly getting in on the action.
As Reuters recently reported, “prepper culture” is diversifying “amid fear of disaster and political unrest.” The article describes one recent prepper convention in Colorado where “bearded white men with closely cropped hair and heavily tattooed arms” perused the aisles alongside “hippy moms carrying babies in rainbow-colored slings” and “Latino families looking over greenhouses and water filtration systems.”
A USA Today report published last December also found that “39 percent of millennials and 40 percent of Gen Zers reported having spent money on prepping” over the past year. One prepper whom the paper spoke to said that many liberals, especially young ones, were “shocked into action by the pandemic and the federal government’s response to the George Floyd protests.”
Rising concerns about GMO crops and heavy doses of growth hormones in livestock, along with omnipresent fears of catastrophic climate change, have also led many liberals (and some conservatives as well) to the prepper movement.
A Symptom Of Societal Decay?
The trend in most media reports on preppers has been to paint the movement as a negative sign of societal decay. The fact that so many people feel scared and anxious about the future is a reflection of how deeply divided and distrusting we are of one another, or so the logic goes.
But oddly enough, Americans’ growing belief that society is on the verge of collapse may be one of the few things uniting them. Voters in both parties believe the election of the opposing candidate in this fall’s presidential election would be a cataclysmic event for the country. 67 percent of Americans believe the country is either in more trouble than usual or is in the most troubled state they’ve ever seen.
There may, then, be a silver lining to the pessimism that defines the prepper movement. It seems that many Americans of all political persuasions are finally beginning to realize that the government is not the solution to all human problems, and that self-reliance – once considered a core American virtue – is indeed vitally important.
In other words, the devastating collapse of public confidence in America’s institutions may be accompanied by a surge in public confidence in the power of the individual to secure his or her own future. While Americans can never be absolutely certain that society won’t collapse in the event of a disaster, they can be certain in their own agency to do everything within their power to secure a safe and prosperous future for themselves and their family.
That, at least, is something worth preparing for.
That is preposterous. There is no way to prepare for the end of the world. I would go out on a limb to say that most preppers have lost confidence in the institutions that support the way of life we enjoy today. They see way government orchestrates crisis after crisis. They see the war on farmers and they know who the ultimate target is.
I’m so old that my stash doesn’t have to be all that large.
More like preparing for the end of civil society.
I’m pretty sure all my efforts are actually going to benefit my non raptured neighbors.
there is no “surviving” a nuclear holocaust. I thought this was settled 40 years ago.
I have been ready for that for the last 54 years after my discharge from the military. Paying attention to the world situation and having extra stocks on hand just in case.
When the Vietnam war ended someone wondered whom our next war would be with. I thought then said.....Islam. I was correct. I was not the only one who thought it.
bkmk
The best prep is, first, having kids and raising them well. And, second, get involved in saving America rather than being a couch potato. (A few guns might also come in handy.)
No one is going to make it unless they make a huge lifestyle change now. One has to learn and practice how to live completely without electricity long term first thing. Basically return to the lifestyle during the 1800s before electricity so that when it comes you don’t notice much and the impact will be minimal. Only about 5% of this country is ready and prepared to do this, the rest are history in a few short months.
A lot of “Prepping” is just learning and applying the lessons learned by watching how depression era grandparents live. They probably would have appreciated being able to have generators and long storage food available.
Might also want to network with half a dozen other families to support each other. Learn to communicate without electronics like the Pilgrims.
practice how to live completely without electricity
That’s the first start to prepping...
If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
My guess is that a major disruption is more likely than the end of the world or total collapse of civil society. Our infrastructure is susceptible to attack and it could leave hundreds of thousands without power, food disruptions, energy issues etc for weeks to perhaps months, that's what would be smart to prepare for. As an example, Covid - who would have guessed toilet paper would be a hot hard to find commodity. It caused near panic. Imagine no power for a month. Store food supplies stripped. I can see the value of having 1-3 months of supplies.
Since they're apparently using energy as their weapon of choice, I've therefore made our home and driving mostly energy independent.
“That’s the first start to prepping...”
Yep, but it is the last thing folks are willing to practice now ahead of the game. Number one and most important is acclimating your body and learning to live without central heating and A/C. There will be no such thing as setting the thermostat when the SHTF. If you cannot live without central now you will never make it when it does happen. Nothing else you do to prepare will matter at all if you don’t actually do this first. It is a prerequisite.
If the power goes out permanently I want be able to run the following and have put the gear together to make it so.
-microwave ovens
-room air conditioners
-Fans, lots of fans
-refrigerators and small freezers
-Washing machine
-my computers
-My ham radio gear
-simplex repeaters for local comms
-electric blankets
-LED room lighting
-DC chainsaws
-Small power tools
I still need to get the gear together to pump water from my
wells, I can draw water by hand but a pump and pressure tank is a better solution by far.
I am not building a solar power system capable of running the electric central heaters or the clothes dryer.. I can hang clothes out to dry them and I live in a vast forest so I have two woodstoves at the ready.
I have gathered together redundant air conditioners, power tools, small refrigerators..etc etc
I have gathered some ammo but I’m not much of a gun guy.
I have a 22 rifle and a 12 gauge pump shotgun and hundreds of rounds for them.
Lots of security gear, doppler motion sensors, 8 cam security system..etc
LOTS of foodstuffs, medicines, surgical instrument sets..etc
I still need to stock some IV fluids and more bandages and such... I also need to get some O2 concentrators..
I have about 20 good GPS drones for surveillance use.
I still think of at least one more thing each day that I need to get... I know I will forget several things but what can you do...
I have EMP storage for Ham and solar gear, this is just several large galvanized trash cans. 40 spare solar panels that are not connected, still factory packaged.. these should survive any EMP.
My car is old and likely will survive EMP, I got ten 5gal cans for gas... I was shocked at how much a simple 5gal gas can costs! :-/
I have the gear to assemble a mesh network that would cover the county I live in.
I have some FM band transmitters and could cover the local area with a signal if it came to that.
I have four 65’ fiberglass telescoping antenna poles for repeaters and the mesh network.... and nice tall hills on the property for them.
I’m a frugal guy (cheap) but I felt the need to prepare.
I hope to God I never have to use any of it!
Be prepared my FRiends!
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