Let me set the scene: a dinner party in Manhattan, the guests mostly conservatives of varying degrees of intensity, and the midterms had just happened. So you can imagine the mood. Every topic arrived at the table already cast in gloom. Somebody’s exotic Christmas holiday plans were delivered in a tone that suggested forced migration. The news of somebody’s new grandchild was greeted by “Congratulations, I guess,” implying a kind of Who wants to bring a child into a world with a Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer?

So when one guest mentioned that the British government had just told every household in the United Kingdom to keep three days of water and non-perishable food on hand, the table perked up the way gloomy people do when they’re handed some fresh new catastrophe to fret about.