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 had largely been 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 the 2016 election of former U.S. President Donald Trump, the COVID-19 pandemic, more frequent extreme weather and the 2020 racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd.