If enough people believe the end is near, is it?

Well, the end may not be upon us, but a surprising number of Americans believe something significant is coming to a close. Could it be white dominance, the Industrial Age or democracy itself? We just elected a self-adoring autocrat to somehow regain control of a world in chaos–although the crime rate is low, the economy decent, terrorism rare and large-scale war non-existent. But for many, the machinery feels like it’s falling to pieces. Or maybe they unwittingly harbor a fantasy that the center cannot not hold in our frighteningly complex, dawning Digital Age. Collapse is a time machine minus the technology.

From Cheryl Stritzel McCarthy’s Chicago Tribune report on the end-of-days industry::

The prepper movement, while not mainstream, is no longer just the province of outliers holed up in doomsday bunkers.

“It’s become less out of the ordinary, less extreme,” says Arthur Markman, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin. “At first, 10 years ago, it was a real spectacle. Now there are more websites on it. Even people who don’t think of themselves as preppers are thinking, ‘Is there something I could do to be prepared in case I have to do things for myself?’

“The undercurrent of mistrust in society has gotten bigger,” Markman says. “Look at the current election climate. You have a lot of angry voters.” News stories such as the Flint, Mich., water supply, or banks too big to fail, prompt citizens to distrust large-scale institutions traditionally seen as safe. …

Food, water and .22 ammo are the essentials for apocalypse, agrees “Loren,” a sporting goods store clerk who asked that his real name not be used. “Over years, (preppers) collect guns and ammunition. They’re a tight-lipped group. Some have regular jobs; you wouldn’t know they have an arsenal under their house.”•