Election fears ignite 'preppers' already planning for the catastrophic unknown

Says Mr Jerry Katich, he’s locked and loaded.

Flint, Michigan, native Tyler has a generator in his home in a suburb of Flint. Buy ambulances contains first aid kits, source of light, and heat blankets in his cars. Three days’ worth of instructions from how to make bread to skinning a rabbit are contained in more than 800 pages stored in three-ring binders. And in his basement, he’s put four FREEZERS and uses storing water, canned and preserved food and MREs with enough food to last his family for 5.5 years.

“I’m ready for anything to transpire, whether it’s an EMP going off” however the dad of two refers to an “electromagnetic pulse” event like a nuclear attack “or World War III.”

Karen first sparked his interest in the activity more than 15 years ago and, according to Katich, a curiosity among the newcomers is growing steadily.

It is a closed group on Facebook he created, having 17,900 members currently and was 8000 during Covid pandemic period. He credits this rise to a sense of turmoil during President Joe Biden’s term.

And it was partly due to global wars, months of protest, outlook increase and another presidential period — with the memories of the U.S. Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, and what seems another bid on Republican nominee Donald Trump — that “preppers” like Katich are especially on high alert.

“If Trump isn’t elected, I’m thinking we’re either going to see a military coup or we’re going to see the second civil war,” he said, who works part-time at a steel company. “We can kill it immediately, however, it will take time to develop.”

Polarizing language from politicians is feeding on people’s concerns about the future and in Michigan, a swing state the prepper idea of people being able to rely on only themselves coinciding with a long history of irregular militia supporting the rights of the individual and its opposition to government oppression.

This place doesn’t look like the country I know. That’s not America anymore, I don’t think, Trump voter Michael Clark from a rural town of fewer than 1,000 people, near Lake Michigan. “Of course people just want to take something for their families like you know they just want to have control over their lives.”

Clark, 69, does not think he is extreme in his preparation; his wife has a pressure canner that she uses for processing meats.

At a Preparedness Expo in southern Michigan this month, Clark sold dietary supplements and cosmetics containing colloidal silver, light particle suspensions in liquid that the FDA recognizes as an antibacterial agent despite its ineffectiveness in treating infection and diseases.

Sponsored by Wear a T-shirt “Vote 2024” Clark pointed incapable with Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris or telling Trump that he is fearmongering.

According to Harris: “Donald Trump, the candidate, has said, in this election, there will be a bloodbath if this — and the outcome of this election is not to his liking.”

Trump used the phrase “a bloodbath for the country” in a campaign rally in March in relation to the situation if he is not re-elected, but he said it while talking about a possible trade war with China on car manufacturing.

For his part, Trump has accused Biden and Harris of inciting people to try to kill him, despite having no proof of this.

“That language that they use makes me get shot at,” Trump said on Fox News a day after an armed suspect was arrested at a West Palm Beach, Florida golf course this month. A man armed with a gun was confronted by a Secret Service agent and the man did not shoot his weapon, according to authorities.

A three-day Michigan prepper expo, held in Imlay City, an hour north of Detroit, is one of many such events held annually around the U.S., where people can learn about growing seeds, filtering and using water from rains, and surviving an active shooter.

The number of preppers in the United States is thought to be over 20 million people and increasing since 2017, based on the amounts from FEMA’s household resiliency research conducted by researchers in 2022. In this research, any citizen who can self prepare for 31 days or more at home in the absence of public water, power or transport is considered as a resilient citizen.

Drew Miller, the chief executive of the Fortitude Ranch, a survival community with its 1,000 residents and offices all across the United States, trains residents for “viral pandemics, marauder threats and collapse conditions.” Prepper interest, he said, “is on the rise because folks are waking up to the realities that the world is becoming more dangerous with each passing day.”

It’s not giving in to a sky-is-falling mentality, says Miller, a retired Air Force colonel in Colorado, it is about having a plan. The company’s app provides the users with different themes to help them through a “collapse”, and a recent simulation concerned the threat of election violence and a civil war.

Because this year has been so unpredictable, Miller said, he discouraged workers to stay home from November through January; he suspects the United States’ foes will attempt to take advantage of the transition period if there is one.

On a public Facebook preppers page with more than 39,000 members, users have debated the extent of any violence and looming catastrophe, which in the community’s lingo is referred to as SHTF, or “s--- hits the fan”:

“I suspect it will be here before the end of the year.”

“I think that’s the hype every election, but better safe than sorry!”

“If Trump doesn’t win there might be some fighting in certain areas but otherwise no I am not worried about it on a global level.”

Farther north in the agricultural county of Lapeer where Trump decimated Biden in 2020, the discreet clash of such concerns unfolds behind the scenes of the Great Lakes Emergency Preparedness Expo held this year in Imlay City. But Biden was able to win Michigan in that election by over 154,000 votes.

There was no political propaganda, though one of the traders had a pendant with Trump’s picture after being shot in the ear in July in an assassination attempt. Parents pushed children while families walked through tables with food sellers, a man selling gun cleaner, outdoor equipment carrier, ham radios, and what looked like antique lamps with some oil residue on them.

“I already have a survival kit packed for Tuesday,” said registered nurse and the study’s coordinator, Lydia Mobley, 34, playfully alluding to the fact that agencies own short-term emergencies emerge any day of the week.

It’s the exact kind of attendee that wants to prep, according to the expo’s Director of Operations, Kyle MacNall.

“Not all of them are buying toilet paper and canned foods and building underground shelters,” he said.

Some are, such as Michigan couple Dave and Sonya Boone, both 52, who are adventurous off the grid. This was done at the expo with the demonstration of a converted solar power cargo trailer, an outside bathroom, and a solar oven used for baking cookies, preserving meat and other purposes.

This is in stark contrast to the current trends in prepping that Boone said he began doing over two decades ago when ‘we were outcasts. They think you’re weird.”

But now, he said, many who join it to know it’s brought ‘a lost art’ to live that what parents and grandparents do during the Great Depression to can food and be wise.

When Sonya Boone became a mother, she developed an interest in prepping, because she considered how she would provide for her child if there is a bigger disaster.

Now, they record short videos to share on social media for people who need tips in their daily lives, or those who are interested, and they established a community of local preppers.

While at the expo, Sonya Boone bought ducks from a friend who visited her trading her three dozens of eggs from her ducks and rosemary for 15 pounds of beef suet and mint.

“If economic times crash,” she said “you should know people who have excess of something you lack.”

Sonya Boone noted, however, that political tension contributes to the feeling; she does not have a stand on the issue.

Again, Katich does not allow political statuses in his Facebook group other than when a member has a survival question where the answer may lead to world events.

First, Katich, a 49-year-old independent voter who had been registered as a Democrat for most of his voting life but switched after the infamous 2016 election, recalled his time working at General Motors (GM) in Saginaw until he got injured in the workplace in 2004.

And Katich said he’s ready if the former president does — or does not.

“Talking to others, I don’t have objections if people don’t want to discuss prepping for the future or don’t want to know about it,” Katich continued. “We both have a couple family members that we think they’re crazy for even trying to do something like this.” But hey don’t come knocking at my door because you didn’t plan do you?

“Well, maybe I’ll give you rice and some beans and water,” he said, “and you take care.”