I am a firm believer in the meaning of words, and in words having meaning, even when chosen by the subconscious mind rather than the conscious one.
A fortification is a mechanical force multiplier for defensive purposes. It allows ground to be held against a superior force with a smaller number of defenders, or poorly-equipped defenders. It must be built on ground the occupying side already holds, prior to the arrival of the opposing force, and requires personnel actively engaged to repel the enemy.
When the institutional Left spoke of "Fortifying the Election", they were tacitly admitting # things.
- The 'Election', in other words the electoral system, and by proxy the federal government, was territory they occupied and laid claim to.
- They had a defensive force ready and willing to protect their claim over the electoral system, but they were numerically inferior to those preparing to take it away (the voters).
- The only way to fend off the electoral assault on their claim was to implement a force multiplier for allow their limited defenders (ballot manufacturing/harvesting) to stave off the electorate at large.
I'm honestly quite irritated to have put all of this together two years after the fact. I knew they planned to cheat, and have not wavered in that belief since well before the last U.S. presidential election, but I should have realized they were telegraphing exactly how they planned to do it months in advance.
I would wager there are other instances of this out there, waiting to be noticed. It seems a cousin of the liar's smirk or beguiler's glee seen so often when a Leftist activist is interviewed or interrogated, knowing no consequences will come of it.
On that note, look at the current behaviour of the Democrats.
They're desperate - more so than usual - to disarm the populace; they're committed to entrenching a fusion of state and corporate power in the media, at least, and they're actively working towards reducing everybody outside the wealthiest classes to poverty and dependence upon the state - the Biden administration isn't even trying to hide the inflation any more, instead saying it'll perform some transformative magic on the US economy.
What does that tell you about the intentions of the Democrats?
The Democrats have seen the future, and it seems to look rather like Soviet Russia of the 1930s...
i think it's some other place from the 1930s we're headed to... if history repeats however, what comes after ought to be rather fun
When were they talking about fortifying the election?
The big one I recall is the Time Article / (Archive), which basically gloated about activity taken against Trump in 2020.
I think this is where the term 'fortifying' was first used, too. Per the linked article: "They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it."
I recall that. That seems to be the story of fortifying the steal. I thought you were talking about processes to ensure reliable vote counting and against cheating, which leftists seem be always against. Whether their pre-2020 concerns about the vulnerability of the system were well founded or not, the PTB seem to have understood that cheating would benefit them. Otherwise, there's no way they push for mail in voting, because that's the easiest kind to defraud.
Evidently they still don't believe Republicans are going to "turn the tables," because in that case they'd push for voter ID in a heartbeat.
The left is always about using the rules to screw over people they hate, but never allowing the rules to get in the way of doing what they want.
Example: In Michigan, lefty activists tries to use signature matching to get three Republican candidates thrown off the election ballot. A judge eventually had to step in and allow them on the ballot.
Signature matching is a tool to use for ballot validation, but the left blows a gasket every time someone brings it up to check for fraud, and never allows it to be used for audits of election ballots. It was not done anywhere for the 2020 election, by anyone.
This is why I have said for years that Republican counties need to cheat their asses off using the exact same methods Democrats use, so that Democrats, in response, reflexively shred the tools they use to cheat.
I've never understood how signature matching could be done other than by experts -- which seems expensive. There are people that you pay good money to do that, when you care such as in the vitally important category of sports memorabilia, because they have special training. I'm not even knocking your average election worker when I say that having them do it verifies nothing. If Joe Schmoe is doing the verification than Joe Schmoe of Handwriting +1 can fake it.
Which is why it's not a good method. Aren't ballots supposed to be anonymous anyways? The whole reason we're here is because supposedly people can't be bothered to vote , err due to the deadly plague
That is assuming that Republicans want to win elections. Their schtick works a lot better when they are the minority party. They still get to go the same authoritarian direction as the progressives but can claim that if they were "in power", things would certainly be different.
Most establishment Republicans are right where they want to be. They are taking their cut by playing their part and get to be seen as the good guys by a majority of the country.
When the curtain falls, all the actors in Washington are friends with one another and celebrate how easy it was to convince everyone of their drama and narrative.