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.
“-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”
Unfortunately you are dreaming... We have actually lived off grid for over ten years and the only items in that list that are sustainable are the computer, ham gear, and lights. Even the repeater will not be sustainable unless you only turn it on occasionally and intermittently.
Having experience living without and minimal electricity I can tell you now your approach is backwards. Rather than try to satisfy electric devices, the reality is you have to change your lifestyle to minimize and reduce electric device demand or it is completely unsustainable.
One of the best and most effective preps is to eliminate consumer debt. Then pay off your home. Traditionally, preppers store food and supplies. Not having some (shelf stable) food and basic survival supplies is a more modern lifestyle thing. Everyone my age remembers having some what would be considered “survival” food items as a regular practice back in the day but this has gone out of style. I’m all for having some long terms storage of food, emergency lighting, a second heat source, some kind of plan to protect in case of lawlessness and some communication device, tools and maybe barter items. But acquire this stuff after you get your debt (if you have some) under control.
Sure there is. Weren’t you taught to just get under your desk at school? Those school desks will ensure your survival.
Government sure knows how to get things right, like the covid jab will stop the sickness and the transmission of the virus....WRONG.
It's best to have a large solar panel array AND and large LiFePO4 battery bank...AND run efficient items like the solar refrigerators/freezers I got, they are energy stingy.
Build your system so that you can get by even if EVERY day from now on will be overcast... you only get 10-20% of your panel rating in such conditions and only for perhaps 6hrs a day at most so OVERBUILD. 20kw of panels will give you 2-4kw for 4-6hrs a day 20kw of panels are selling for roughly 12,000 dollars currently (Amazon) 100kw of panels for roughly 60,000.. Of course you need to live on a farm or something to put out so many panels.. I have 40 acres.
If you don't build for the worst possible case of every day being overcast you will be disappointed with your results.
And if you get clear bright days an overbuilt system can really get you some power... say 20kw+ on a bright day, you can run a clothes dryer during such times... but I'd still rather store the extra and hang the clothes out :-)
Be aware that the copper wiring for a large system is pretty costly.. 2 aught copper ain't cheap and it's best to run a 48VDC system so you can use smaller/cheaper wiring :-/
Also get enough AC charge capability so if your power from the grid is intermittent you can top up your battery bank... but don't depend on that, again.. OVERBUILD!
These are the panels I am now buying to put in storage.. unconnected in case of EMP, they should survive if not connected to wiring... I have diodes to replace those if the ones on the panel were to blow.
I have about 100 of these and more coming... here they are, it's a good buy for 100watt 9bb monocrystalline panels with free shipping.
learning to live without central heating and A/C.
Lived in Florida in the early 60’s. NO ONE had AC. And, since it was FL, central heat in the winter was called long pants & a sweater...
“If the power goes out permanently I want be able to run the following and have put the gear together to make it so.”
Where are you going to get the fuel to run all this stuff...permanently?
“One of the best and most effective preps is to eliminate consumer debt.”
The entire grid is down, there’s no fuel, no water, no nothing. I don’t think your credit score is really going to make much difference. And who is coming to repossess your house? If they do, shoot them. (Just being a little contrarian.)
That is ghetto fantasy (EMP/nuclear war/alien invasion will send us back to the 1800s and I won’t have to pay anything off), in real life when the emergency is over you want to have weathered it well and do not want the chaos of credit shot, things being repossessed, losing your home, etc., and if your employer went out of business you want to be in a position to keep up with things until you get back on an even keel.
We just went through one of America’s biggest emergencies and being debt free was good advice for it.
nw_arizona_granny's Prepper Threads from FR's Clinton era:
Then there were
The decline of Christian faith and rise of social media and many blogs and the median age increase. Thank God for what is good.
It’s solar, the sun powers it
“It’s solar, the sun powers it”
If you’re going to run air conditioners, microwaves, etc. you must have or plan to have one heck of a solar system.
“That is ghetto fantasy”
That’s what I love about Freerepublic. You can make a semi-sarcastic humorous comment and in return get a despicable personal insult. You could have left off that part and still made your point, but, no, in current FR fashion, you just couldn’t do it. Gotta be badass sitting behind your keyboard.
There was no reason to think your post wasn’t serious and it reflects ghetto type thinking, getting out of debt is an excellent part of being a prepper.
Your reaction is way overboard and nasty, you seem to be trolling the thread just to argue.
No.
It entered human culture the first time we moved into an area where it was not continually summer.
“it reflects ghetto type thinking”
Amazing. I told you my comment was tongue in cheek, but, instead of an apology for a baseless personal insult, you double down. I really don’t get it with people like you. Go ahead and insult me one more time and I’ll call it quits.
It will not be fun but surviving any war is not fun.
"On the Beach" was fear porn from a guy who wanted to scare people. He succeeded.
modern nuclear weapons are over 3,000 times more powerful than the weapons we dropped on Japan. There is no surviving, world war with those weapons = all life eliminated. To think otherwise is folly.
The first rule of Prep Club is do not talk about Prep Club.
L
If you are going big go commercial grade panels even at retail prices by the pallet they are 2/3 the cost of Amazon.
Get someone with a TIN number and get wholesale price by the pallet worth. Half of the retail price point on a minimum two pallet order that’s 64 panels for around six grand. That’s 20 cents per watt with a25 year 80 cap life. 64 panels is a 28.8 kilowatt system and will power a HUGE home with dual A.C. Units roaring. Those panels are 75”*44” or 2.12 square meters no small coincidence as the 120 cells have an’m exactly 2 square meters area. If you laid them flat you won’t those 64 panels cover ~136 square meters or 1463 sq freedom units. Those panels will be tilted at an angle roughly equal to the latitude of instal. No need for acreage at all a fairly large home would already have the roof area facing south if not then cover the back yard deck, 3 car garage as well. Now you have a large system that even on overcast days are gonna put out 10 to 30% rates capacity. No need for copper wires outside you use aluminum wire just like every other commercial installation does.
You series wire your panels into groups of 8 for a working 277VDC at 13 amps or 3600 watt groups. 64 panels gives you eight groups. This is direct buried cable no conduct needed above or below ground. Cheap too and 50 amp @600V
https://nassaunationalcable.com/products/8-duplex
You run them need eight 277vdc input 4000 watt pure sine inverters that will output either 3 phase (240/400)/50hz or split phase (120/240)/60Hz for the Americans. Here again with a TIN number those are in the 20 cents per watt capex.
Do the install with subcontractor labor and only use a licenced electrician for the breaker tie in and inverter to breaker connections. Your all in cost should be under 25 grand. You then have a full off grid capable power supply if you want to add in powerwalls Tesla will be happy to sell you some.
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