Please Note: The following message is intended for mature audiences.  Especially adults who voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election that may (...now or in the near future...) be embarrassed for choosing him.[i] 

I was not, by any definition of the words, a "Trump supporter" in the months leading up to the election.  I had read (..."been fed"?) the most critical opinions from news reports of his personality and behavior for the previous 5 years....  Plus, I had a few negative opinions of my own from his performances on "The Apprentice" tv show.  In other words, Trump was the last person I ever imagined the American people would elect as president in my absence (I live in Norway).

But something changed drastically in the weeks leading up to November 3, 2020... and the days following.

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To explain further, I think the following discussions on "compartmentalization" and "diffusion of responsibility" are necessary:

"Compartmentalization" (...I know.  What ever happened to using simple English terms everyone could understand?)

1. Based on my experiences with Navy life and concepts, "compartmentalization" applies to the way ships are constructed; providing multiple sections of water-tight spaces.  When properly sealed by the crew, if only a limited number of those spaces get flooded, the ship will still have a chance to stay afloat.

2. In spy/terrorist situations, the concept of "compartmentalization" can also be utilized, although in a much different environment.  Instead of holding out water in multiple sections, "informational compartmentalization" is designed to prevent critical information from spreading to too many members in the organization.  With that particular feature, if a limited number of "cohorts" get discovered or infiltrated by the enemy, the remaining groups could theoretically continue towards accomplishing the organization's goals without "sinking".  

3. When I was in the Navy, I had a "Secret" security clearance.  As a new junior officer, I excitedly, naively assumed that I would have clearance to see all classified information below the level of "Top Secret".  But it didn't take long for me to learn that that wasn't the case.  You see, the Navy's security clearance efforts to "compartmentalize" its sensitive information also came with the qualifier:  "...and the need to know."  Even if the file was classified "Secret" or "Confidential," if I didn't have "the need to know" (...meaning it was "none of my business"!) I was not allowed access.

...If I had fallen (or been thrown!) off of my ship and captured by the "enemy", the only military things that I knew -- that could be "tortured out of me" -- were the memorized details of a 1960's-era destroyer, how to write subordinates' performance reviews, and, get this, what prescription medicines we kept in the first aid kit!  Tactically-speaking, I was pretty much a "nobody".  I didn't have, therefore couldn't give up, any significant, valuable secrets.  Conversely and thus, in this kind of a system, (the higher the clearance you have) + (the more you need to know), the more valuable info that can be lost to "the bad guys."

"Diffusion of Responsibility"

(I found the info quoted below on the internet which I sincerely doubt would be worth lying about.... But you just never know., do you?)  

On the topic of firing squad protocols:

"...Sometimes, one or more members of the firing squad may be issued a weapon containing a blank cartridge. In such cases, members of the firing squad are not told beforehand whether or not they are using live ammunition. This is believed to reinforce the sense of diffusion of responsibility among the firing squad members."  And "...In more recent times, such as in the execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner in the American state of Utah in 2010, one rifleman may be given a "dummy" cartridge containing a wax bullet instead of a lead bullet, which provides a more realistic recoil."

Based on my previous understanding and these confirming details, my interpretation of "diffusion of responsibility" is that efforts can be intentionally coordinated to alter the perception of what an individual in a team does (...or fears he does) by making it somewhat possible that it wasn't actually HIM that did it.  (E.g. Firing squad member) + (possibly fake bullet) + (shot aimed at victim's heart) = (possibly NOT actually responsible for victim's death).

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So, combining "information compartmentalization" and firing squad "diffusion of responsibility", it's not so hard to imagine how a national election could be stolen; given enough motivation, money and time...  While simultaneously doing it all so that no one person or group (...other than, perhaps, "top leadership", that is...) has to feel totally guilty for doing it!

If no one in Detroit, Michigan needed to know, and thus didn't know, what was happening in Philadelphia, PA, they wouldn't have to feel particularly guilty afterwards.  If those responsible for feeding fake, duplicate and/or otherwise invalid ballots into an election machine in Fulton County Georgia after the polls were closed didn't know about internet connections and software "improprieties" in ANY of the targeted "swing states", they really couldn't be blamed for "that much fraud".   Catching one, or even several, election-center volunteers cheating would be the equivalent of the enemy capturing a low-ranking sailor floating helplessly in the long-gone wake of his more threatening "mother ship".

No one individual or small team caught at any of the lower levels would represent a "leak" big enough to change the election's outcome.  Breaking up the total cheating efforts into many smaller pieces, using various types of manipulation, with a well-trained damage control team on stand-by to fix any "accidental leaks and/or slip-ups" (such as placing cardboard sheets over observation windows) the "Ocean's 2020" star-studded thieves could have effectively turned an unimaginable operation into an almost "sure thing".

And, once pulled off, the payoffs would be far greater than their massive, initial investments required.

Oh yeah...  Even though a "Doubting Thomas" before, now I see at least one LIKELY way how "The Fix" could have been pulled off.  (By the way, didn't "they" brag about doing "it" in that Time magazine article in January 2021?)

...As if that wasn't bad enough, I see no reason why -- with much less effort -- that it couldn't be done again!

...And again.

...And again.  

...Until it never needed to be done at all.

So, if you're like I used to be where "winning means everything"... and your candidate won this time... No big deal, right?  

...Not so fast.

What if your candidate, disappointing as he already is, doesn't even make it in office past the Spring of 2021" and his "replacements" (...who you weren't really voting for in the first place) show themselves to be much worse?  What if you want -- or absolutely need -- to vote for the other side next time?  

But then, after voting for the other side next time, what if things turn out to be even worse than in Nov. 2020? As a voter, you'll certainly have the “clearance" to find out what's going on; our Constitution guarantees that.

But what if the government tells you... "Sorry, citizen, but you don't have the need to know"?

For middle class Americans who voted for Biden in 2020, I suspect winning will never seem so bad... so soon...

***sound of microphone dropping***

Graphic credit: Adrien Coquet via The Noun Project CC BY-3.0