An acquaintance of mine recently suffered the loss of her husband. The man collapsed of a sudden heart attack, and then he was gone.
In the aftermath of this crushing, unexpected calamity, my acquaintance scrambled to get her late husband’s affairs in order, and her digging into bank accounts and recent activities delivered another shocker: She discovered that her husband had a secret life.
No, he didn’t have a mistress, work as a double agent, fight crime superhero-style at night, or anything sexy like that. It turned out that the guy was a prepper.
He had spent about a hundred grand of their retirement money on a bunker, guns, provisions, and the necessities of a Mad Max existence.
And the man never told his wife about this, for reasons that he quite obviously can never provide (you know, because he’s dead). All my acquaintance knows is that she has $100,000 less in her retirement fund because her deceased hubby was convinced society would soon collapse and wild-eyed marauders would be on the hunt.
I’ve written before about preppers, those incredibly paranoid and/or prescient doomsayers who spend a huge chunk of time and money getting ready for the day when a nuclear holocaust, unstoppable virus, or zombie uprising destroys this pathetic façade we call civilization.
As I stated then, and still believe, these hardcore preppers aren’t just getting ready for Armageddon. They are actively rooting for it, because if it doesn’t happen, they have wasted an enormous portion of their lives on crazy nonsense.
But there is more to this disturbing mindset than a subconscious wish for complete chaos.
Preppers are overwhelmingly male and white. This is not just because white men have the most money to spend on underground vaults and piles of freeze-dried lasagna that can last 25 years (eww). It is because a societal collapse appeals to the white male fantasy of freedom.
Keep in mind that Americans “have been urged and trained to prep as children in various scouting organizations, as homesteaders given a plot of land by the federal government in the colonial project of ‘taming’ the West, and as steady, patriotic citizens prepared to survive nuclear attack to keep the US alive in their bunkers.”
In all of those scenarios (or mythologies if you prefer), the hero is a white man protecting his family. The image that we have been sold about these lone cowboys of ruggedness never includes women or Muslims or Latinos.
It’s always a white guy who believes making plans for “survival in the absence of state support is not being a doomsday prepper but simply being a reasonable, prepared citizen.”
And that brave individualist, who just needs the government to get off his damn back, doesn’t care if 911 goes offline or the streetlights stop working or the hospitals are overrun. When and if America implodes, he will finally be free to do whatever the hell he wants.
Think of it. No stupid job with a stupid boss. No stealing of their hard-earned tax dollars (that are just going to lazy welfare cheats anyway). Not even any complaints to turn down the music, because the neighbors will be too scared (or too dead) to argue with the heavily armed king in his castle.
That sounds like paradise to many strong, gun-toting white men.
And there has never been a better time to embrace the fantasy. Our incompetent, corrupt government is not exactly reassuring its citizens that America will persevere. I’m not just talking about the shaky economy, unraveling international relationships, and botched wars that have become the hallmarks of this flailing administration.
The conservative mindset encourages “a bunkerized society [in] a permanent state of readiness … as a condition of living in the hollowed-out shell of a state that does not take infrastructural stability and basic need satisfaction as a right but as a good one must supply for oneself.”
It’s the ultimate libertarian endgame. The only thing better than small government is no government at all.
The American Dream, whatever that was, now costs far more than most people will ever earn. To many Americans, the odds of raising kids, buying a home, and achieving other traditional milestones are equivalent to the chances that the nation will fall into cannibalistic anarchy. So why not invest in a concrete alcove with a steel door that will be your personal kingdom, free of governmental interference and ethnic minorities?
And it certainly has felt like end times ever since November 2024, when the US chose fascism over boring competence.
To a large segment of America, the coming apocalypse is not something to be feared. It is an opportunity to start over, and to live one’s best life, and to shoot off as many guns as you damn well desire. These guys are looking forward to the collapse.
So always remember: Your dystopia is someone else’s utopia.
