Maybe by the time you read this you’ll know something about the result of the election. Obviously, I had to write this column before Election Day, and obviously I’m not Nostradamus. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I think I know what’s going to happen. I think Trump is going to win. But I’ve been wrong before, and I could be wrong now. Regardless, something will happen, and that something will have huge consequences down the road. So, you better get ready for whatever comes, and being ready for a glorious Trump victory or an awful communist tragedy look pretty similar.
Remember, you can only control one thing. You can only control what you do. So, do the smart thing. Be prepared because everything from a relatively peaceful transition of power to tumbling down a slippery slope toward civil war is on the table. I think things will work out. I think America will muddle through, even if it makes the idiotic choice. But, again, I’m not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, nor the second cousin twice-removed of a prophet. I could be wrong. Things could get bad. Things could get really bad. That is why it makes sense to take reasonable steps to hedge against the worst-case scenario.
Again, you can only control one thing—what you do. So, here are some smart things to do to be ready.
Get your butt in shape. The abundance of America has spoiled us. A lot of us are out of shape. A lot of us are just plain fat. I was just in France and everybody there is thin. And when I say everybody there is thin, I mean you don’t see young people who are huge like you do here. I suppose they exist, but there aren’t a lot of them. Everybody walks everywhere. They get exercise. They don’t stuff their faces, but they eat well and don’t worry about carbs. That’s not our culture. In America, you have to go out of the way to get in shape. You should get in shape. I hit the gym three days a week. When I’m not at the gym, I’m out doing long walks – thanks to our friend Larry O’Connor, I’m now carrying a pack when I do. Am I in top shape? No. I can and will lose a few pounds, but I can move, have stamina, and am strong. If I had to take action to get myself out of a situation or to fight, I’m capable of doing those things. You need to be capable, too, not just for yourself but for those around you. You don’t want to be a burden. You don’t want to be the person who can’t keep up. Remember, those around you don’t have to be faster than the bear. They only have to be faster than you.
Keep informed. Know what’s going on not only in the country but in your neighborhood. Stuff can change for the worse very, very quickly. I was in the Los Angeles riots. I was going to law school in downtown LA when the Rodney King verdict came down. I got back to Pasadena and turned on the TV and the first thing I saw was what was happening to Reginald Denny at Florence and Normandie. And when I saw that, I knew stuff was going to go down. I had just joined the National Guard after leaving active duty and called into my unit to see what was up. They thought the new lieutenant was crazy because, of course, we were not going to be mobilized. I packed everything anyway. And we were mobilized.
Sadly, at the time, I had sold all my guns in Germany, and I didn’t have a gun. That became a problem when I had to drive through the riots to get to my infantry unit in Inglewood. Learn from my mistake. Have a gun. Actually, have a handgun, a semi-automatic rifle, and probably a shotgun, too. Buy guns and ammunition and train. You need to be ready to defend yourself, your family, your community, and your Constitution if it comes to that.
And I will bet you money it will not come to that. I will bet you money that we are not going to break down into total chaos. But you know, a couple of days before the LA riot, I would’ve made that same bet, and I would’ve lost big. You don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But anything can happen. If you haven’t taken that lesson from the last quarter century, the lesson that the normalcy that we grew up with, if you are within the boomer/Gen X demographic, is done and gone, then you just aren’t paying attention.
You’ve got to be able to fight. You’ve got to be able to defend yourself and those around you. There’s no cavalry coming. Well, maybe there is, eventually, but do you want to bet your life on a government institution? Do you have a lot of faith that your local government is going to make everything OK for you at a moment’s notice? We just saw what happened with Hurricane Helene. The FEMA feds were AWOL for weeks and even now they won’t pick up the phone. I like the cops, in general, but cops are there to keep the peace. They aren’t there to suppress active chaos. Again, I saw that in Los Angeles. I remember a cop crying in front of me because things were completely out of control. I remember how they put a lot of us soldiers on the street with automatic weapons, and we subdued the bad guys. And I’ll tell you, some of the stuff that happened was pretty ugly.
Things can get ugly fast. People can get hurt. People can get killed. You’ve got to be ready. And you’ve got to be ready to handle the fallout of chaos. Do you know how to stop the bleeding if someone you love comes to you with blood spurting from a severed artery or a sucking chest wound? Well, you better learn. If you don’t have time to take a Red Cross class, maybe take the phone you’re reading this on and study up on how to apply pressure to a wound and even make a field expedient tourniquet.
Now, everything isn’t necessarily going to get turned up to 11. You may just be inconvenienced. We were without power after the recent Houston tropical storm for seven days. We were ready. We had a generator. We also had some food laid in, just in case. Make sure you’ve got a few days of food. Make sure you’ve got some water. Fill up your car so you’ve got a tank of gas. This is just common-sense stuff in case everything goes to hell.
And again, the chances of there being the kind of fallout from this election that significantly disrupts your life in the short term are pretty low. They’re really small. But one of the principles of risk management is that you need to prepare for something that is very unlikely but has devastating consequences much like something that is very likely but has only moderate consequences. You’ll feel better if you’re ready. Best of all, you’ll be ready.
Now, the obvious thing you have probably been telling yourself as you’ve read this is that I’m a little late. You can’t start now and be ready for the immediate aftermath of the election, and that’s totally true. You can’t. But the problems in our society are not going to be fixed immediately, no matter who wins. The risks our society faces are not going away anytime soon. You’re not just getting ready for this election day. You’re getting ready in case the changes that America is undergoing get out of control over the coming months and years. We have some rough times ahead. It’s going to be a while before we have another Era of Good Feelings. Anything can happen, and you should be ready for it all.
Start getting in shape. Keep your head on a swivel. And buy guns and ammunition.
My super-secret email address is Kurt.Schlichter@townhall.com.
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