The private Facebook group he founded, Michigan Preppers, has grown from about 8,000 to nearly 18,000 members since the Covid pandemic. He attributes the increase to a sense of turmoil under President Joe Biden.
Uncertainty fueled by global wars, months of protests, rising costs and another presidential race January 6, 2021, The Capitol Rebellion and now a second an apparent assassination attempt Republican candidate Donald Trump’s “preparators” like Katich are especially vigilant.
“If Trump is not elected, I think we’re either looking at a military coup or a second civil war,” said the part-time worker at a steel company. “It won’t happen immediately, but it will take time to form.”
Provocative rhetoric by political candidates taps into fears and anxieties about the future and Michigan, the battleground statea preparatory belief in self-reliance combined with the history of the region self-created militia groups those who support individual liberties and are skeptical of government power.
“I don’t know this country. I don’t know this world,” said Michael Clark, a Trump supporter who lives in a rural community of less than 1,000 people near Lake Michigan. “People just want to provide for their families and control their future.”
Clarke, 69, doesn’t consider herself to be on the cutting edge; his wife has a pressure canner that he uses to store meats.
At a preparedness event this month in southern Michigan known as the Great Lakes Emergency Preparedness Expo, Clark sold dietary supplements and beauty products containing colloidal silver, or tiny silver particles in a liquid, some of which can treat infections and illnesses but are not considered effective by the Food and Drug Administration.