U.S. ‘prepper’ culture diversifies amid fear of disaster and political unrest
The number of preppers has doubled in size to about 20 million since 2017, due to more people or color and progressives joining the community, experts say.
I can't help but feel like the pandemic had an impact too.
You don't need to last through nuclear war, but having a weeks worth of groceries when it randomly snows a foot, or some candles and flashlights for when the power goes out is prepped too.
We live in crumbling infrastructure with an inept government in a politically divided culture that's starting to see climate change impact. Being a little prepared is not as strange of an idea as it used to be lol.
Even before any modern pandemics, terrorist events or some major catastrophe ..... our modern world is only days away from breaking down at any given moment.
If communications or transportation even just get slightly disrupted, our food supply is immediately threatened. Every city has only a day or two supply of fresh food, then a week supply of non perishable food .... the only reason we never notice is that there is a constant never ending stream of supplies rolling in every single day. As soon as that stream stops for any reason, everyone is in danger.
I think more and more people are just realizing just how vulnerable we really are.
I wouldn't call myself a pepper by any means and I certainly am no gun-toting right-winger... But I'm not going to lie: one of three reasons I'm getting a cargo trailer soon is to have some storage & shelter in the event of an emergent move.
Just throwing this out there, no judge, but liberal and minority groups should safely use their second amendment rights too.
Of course with proper education, safety, and training.
Just saying the second amendment should not only functionally exist for one subset of the population, even in common discussion.
There are some cool empowerment and inclusion groups advocating this that have nothing to do with the NRA or anyone like that
I agree. Responsible gun ownership is for everyone and when done right it's a lot of fun.
And even in right leaning circles only the fudds like the NRA.
Speaking as a former rural Republican gun-owner, I'm personally under the impression that if we get to the point where I need to use firearms to defend myself from right-wing extremists, well, we already lost the fight long before that point. I'd rather we all put our brains instead of bullets together and figure out how to defuse this situation before it spirals even further out of control.
There has been an active, concerted effort documented by ProPublica initially if I recall to foment a race war and muddy the waters of discourse. Interestingly, the right wants the left armed, because they're (a) hoping for more leftist attacks, and (b) it will justify their own recruitment and escalation of force. Meanwhile gun lobbyists realize there's an untapped market of people to sell to, so there has been a concerted astroturfing effort among leftist circles to promote firearm adoption, conveniently.
Besides, statistically, a firearm doesn't make one safer. It actually adds a significant amount of risk in a variety of other aspects. If one is concerned about acute or long-term safety of themselves or their family, I think there are better ways to occupy time, money, and risk.
It’s very important to define what a “prepper” even is.
My parents me keep a first aid kit with a flashlight and some clothes in case a storm knocks down the house.
I personally keep a go bag (no weapons, just clothes, first aid, shelter some dried food,) and about a months worth of dried food (I make it my self- you can dehydrate most prepared meals and rehydrate the same as like ramen or mountain house. It lasts 6+months so I just roll through whenever I need a lazy meal,)
And I’ve got enough aeroponics I could technically subsistence farm for me and my family.
With climate change getting whonky, and storms getting worse, I don’t want to have to rely on FEMA of a storm hits. So yeah, I’ve thought about that and took steps. That would have made me a prepper back a few years ago.
But now? Fuck no.
I just don’t want to be the guy living out of the football stadium using MRE wrappers for clothes.
You need to add a couple of decks of cards and some activity books too.
When people refer to it as prepping or some kind of bad behavior I remind them that ready.gov is meant for everyone and the stuff they recommend only works when it's in place beforehand.
I feel like being ready for potential bad shit has become stigmatized by the negative perception of preppers as being doomsaying lunatics low key coded as people who think The Turner Diaries is a prophecy of coming events.
And by extension people who just practice readiness as a principle get stigmatized as preppers.
Readiness should honestly be less discouraged in society, people who get offended by being approached for a prenup or finding out their partner keeps a bugout bag and runaway fund just sketch me so the fuck out.
Well a prenup is a contract designed to protect your partner from you. The fact your partner thinks they need to be protected from you is painful when you're trying to tie your lives together. Although obviously it has its uses, I'm just trying to show that being approached for a prenup will evoke negative emotions if you weren't planning it.
The second part is the knowledge that your partner is ready and prepared to leave at any time brings uncertainty to the relationship.
Your partner is rarely going to be immediately receptive to your prepping to be apart or to leave. That being said, if you approach preparedness as a team activity and they're included in the plan, it will generally go much better.
It's only a problem if they do something to warrant leaving. Should really only take offense if your intention is to use the marriage as an entrapment of the partner that they can't get out of without incurring massive financial costs both in legal fees and in giving you your pound of flesh for having the gall to stand up for themselves.
The fact that they aren't mandatory to secure a marriage license I think explains the high rates of divorce this country can see at times, immature people who have no business tying the knot getting married with little thought into how serious what they're doing actually is.
Making them prove they understand what they're getting into by outlining their entwined finances and how they'd be undone would significantly reduce the number of marriages doomed to fail.
If you can't stand the thought of your partner being able to leave, you have no business seeking a partner.
People were building fallout shelters all over during the Cold War. This isn't new.
