I recommend that people prepare some supplies, take a first aid class, get involved with a group that meets weekly or monthly (can be anything from politics or CERT to knitting), do what you can for your physical & mental health.

“There is a cult of ignorance in the [US], and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

from the same chapter ...