After the failed business endeavor, my father began stockpiling guns and ammunition. He bought gallons of bottled water and a year’s worth of freeze-dried food. Obama was in office at the time, and my father believed that an apocalypse was coming. Back then, no one in my family could understand his suddenly irrational behavior. The recession was bad, but it didn’t seem like the end of the world. Looking back, however, the underlying rationale feels obvious. My father had lost so much, and he was afraid of losing more. His angry far-right politics masked the vulnerabilities that pervaded his
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