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.

1. The 'Election', in other words the electoral system, and by proxy the federal government, was territory they occupied and laid claim to.
2. 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).
3. 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.

Your political opinions are disjointed; the positions you hold in no way line up with the labels you apply to yourself. When you talk about politics, it sounds like someone live-tweeting the writer's room at Last Week Tonight on a particularly unproductive day.

Your every thought was spoon-fed to you by a group of propagandists who want you dead. Every conversation we have feels to me like digging through a pile of excrement looking to find out what a sick animal had for its last meal. That's how distasteful it is, finding the regurgitated chunks of headline you half-understood, and how easy it is to identify the corny chunks of Sam Bee tweets and blood-red WaPo opinion column titles.

When you asked me to read a technical manual and summarize it for you, I empathized with your learning disorder and helped you out - don't you goddamn dare claim what little you've read of contemporary politics or current events is even on the same plane of validity as my own. When you patronizingly say "No one is entitled to their own facts", I agree, but you mean the ones you were given rather than than the Truth. You imagine yourself a free-thinker, a scientist, and the truth is you question nothing and do not think at all.

I know you're trying to justify your position in the company during layoff season, but I have half a mind to make your job look unnecessary instead of helping you prove how necessary it is, even knowing it will make my own long days even longer.

I doubt I'm the only one who ends a day at work feeling like this. If you read it, thanks for listening to me vent.