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.
LONGMONT, Colo. — Brook Morgan surveyed booths at the “Survival & Prepper Show” in Colorado that were stocked with boxes of ammunition, mounds of trauma medical kits, and every type of knife imaginable.
A self-described “30-year-old lesbian from Indiana,” Morgan is one of a new breed of Americans getting ready to survive political upheaval and natural catastrophes, a pursuit that until recently was largely associated with far-right movements such as white nationalists since the 1980s.
Researchers say the number of preppers has doubled in size to about 20 million since 2017. Much of that growth is from minorities and people considered left-of-center politically, whose sense of insecurity was heightened by Donald Trump’s 2016 election, the pandemic, more frequent extreme weather and the 2020 racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd.
“I’m really surprised by the number of people of color here,” Morgan said. “I always went to these shows with my family in Indiana and it was just white people who were my parents’ age. There are a lot of younger people here, too. It’s a real change.”
Morgan grew up in a prepper family and still considers herself self-reliant and ready to handle a disaster but she left the prepper world of her youth behind in part to escape the conservatism associated with the movement.
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