Robert Kirsch and Emily Ray write:

A family of six pulls up to the Be Prepared Expo in Farmington, Utah. They are concerned about supply-chain failure, sure of the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic was only a taste of what’s to come. They want to buy seeds for their garden so they can grow food to preserve and stash in the basement. The kids pet the puppies at breeder booths selling guard dogs, the father exchanges opinions about the best weapons to cache, and the mother gathers pamphlets about hoarding gold and the crises of the international economy. Quietly between booths, old copies of the novel The Turner Diaries (1978) by the white nationalist William Pierce pass from hand to hand, while speakers give lectures about water filtration systems and the moral imperative of self-reliance.

As Chris Turpin, the CEO of the Be Prepared Expo, shared in an interview: ‘Preparedness helps you from eating your neighbour.’ One way to forestall eating your neighbour is to stock up on supplies at Costco. In any US suburb, a family of four rolls a cart through the cavernous warehouse, placing a ReadyWise food bucket of emergency rations next to a box of muffins and packs of socks. They return to an unremarkable home in a neighbourhood that could be anywhere. There are no trap doors, underground bunkers, or stashes of gold. But there is a gun safe in the garage, long-lasting emergency provisions on a designated shelf in the pantry, and Ring cameras installed inside and outside the house. The kids have their own LifeWater straws to filter freshwater, and their parents watch the news carefully for signs of growing instability in global affairs, of interrupted trade relations, of the return of Jesus Christ.

Welcome to the diverse world of prepping. There are more than 20 million Americans who engage in prepping, while the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) determined in a 2023 survey of Americans that 51 per cent are ‘prepared for a disaster’. Why do people doomsday prep? We approach this question in our book Be Prepared: Doomsday Prepping in the United States (2024) without speculating about their psychology. As political scientists, we are not equipped to assess what goes on in people’s heads, much less whether they sincerely or genuinely believe these things. We have no idea if preppers truly believe the end is near, are merely hedging their bets, or if it helps them cope with some underlying trauma. We also have no idea, of course, if ‘the end’ is actually near. [Continue reading…]