AI is Pretty Fed Up with the Government

Reading Time: 5 minutes

So here’s a little song about how many citizens, on all sides of the political spectrum, feel about the government these days, written by AI.

The thing I like about AI is that it only kind of summarizes what it finds on the internet. So when it ‘sings’ about being fed up with the government, it’s just reflecting the combined conventional wisdom of presumably millions of people.

So here’s what millions of people (around the world) seem to feel when they are not happy with their government.

Verse 1:
I'm pretty fed up with the way you treat me
You act like you don't care about me at all
You never listen to what I have to say
You always make me feel so small

Chorus:
I'm pretty fed up with this situation
I don't know how much more I can take
I'm pretty fed up with your lies and excuses
I feel like you're 'bout to break

Verse 2:
I'm pretty fed up with the games you play
You think you can get away with anything
You always blame someone else for your mistakes
You never admit when you're wrong

Chorus:
I'm pretty fed up with this situation
I don't know how much more I can take
I'm pretty fed up with your lies and excuses
I feel like you're 'bout to break

Bridge:
You don't appreciate me, you don't respect me
You don't understand me, you don't love me
You don't deserve me, you don't need me
You don't want me, you don't see me

Chorus:
I'm pretty fed up with this situation
I don't know how much more I can take
I'm pretty fed up with your lies and excuses
I feel like you're 'bout to break

Outro:
I'm pretty fed up, I'm pretty fed up
I'm pretty fed up, I'm pretty fed up
I'm pretty fed up, I'm pretty fed up
I'm pretty fed up, I'm pretty fed up

So, let’s take a look at what AI thinks the conventional wisdom of bad government is.

Verse 1 of AI’s pretty fedupness

“You act like you don’t care about me at all/You never listen to what I have to say/You always make me feel so small”

Around the world, governments have become unresponsive to the concerns of citizens and residents as they have increased their responsiveness to big money interests. This didn’t start overnight; it’s been going on for at least 40 years. But an increasing reliance on low tax rates (a race to the bottom) to ‘attract business investment’ has made government not ‘care’ about the ordinary people and ‘care’ a lot about the giant global corporations and lobbyist groups who finance political campaigns, have access to lawmakers, and who throw their weight around with massive PR and spin campaigns. To put it bluntly, government is in the pocket of big business.

Regular folks can feel it. They may not realize exactly why it seems that governments don’t give a fuck about them or why they seem to have no power even in so-called democracies, but they can feel it.

When AI laments that government never ‘listens[s] to what I have to say’, it’s reflecting the reality that governments do not, in fact, listen to what most people say. It can’t even hear what most people say. Governments are enmeshed in a bubble of lobbyists, extremist groups, corporate interests, and their own frantic, desperate desire for power and the money it takes to get it.

Extremist groups (very generously funded by billionaires like the Kochs, Peter Thiel, and others) drown out everyone who is not extreme. In the US, opinion polls consistently show that what people (e.g., higher taxes on the super-wealthy) is NOT what they get from government. What people express that they want, when asked by someone, is almost the exact opposite from what they get.

An example of this in the US, is the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court might have thought, with all the noise that anti-abortion groups were making (again, funded by billionaires), and the airtime they were getting, that their agenda reflected what people wanted.

NOPE. When given a chance to opine at the ballot box, people have consistently rejected the extremist positions on abortion enacted by their ‘elected leaders’ and the Supreme Court. Who knew that Americans, by their nature, are not extremists? Can you tell that from a quick scan at the media coverage you have access to? Probably not.

So when AI pens a generic lament about not being listened to – it’s right on the mark. The government does make most people feel so small – because its agenda is dominated by the interests of the very large and the very very wealthy.

In nations that don’t even pretend to be democratic (or barely pretend like Russia), the domination of the agenda by oligarchs and corrupt interests is even more obvious and less discussed. There are a lot of people who suffer under governments ruled by looters and dictators.

Chorus:

AI’s chorus about being ‘fed up with your lies and excuses/I feel like you’re about to break’ is pretty generic as befits AI. But the worry that government is ‘about to break’ doesn’t seem all that unfounded. In the US, there are very real worries that the very form of government the US has propagated around the world – democracy – is about to die in the homeland of its most ardent proponent.

Democracy under major threat in the United States of America?! WTF? What dystopian nightmare is this?

It’s the dystopian nightmare you get when the government is not truly responsive to the needs of its people over the course of decades. It’s the dystopian nightmare you get when extremists and huge money interests systematically undermine trust in and the competency of government itself.

It’s what you get when ‘extreme conservatives’ get their way. Extreme conservatives do not like democracy. Extreme conservatives do not like freedom. Extreme conservatives do not even like people. Extreme conservatives like power, ruthlessness, dictators, repression and oppression.

If there’s one thing is absolutely essential to get pretty fed up about, it’s the extreme political rightwing – around the world.

As history demonstrates, extreme rightwing movements pose an existential threat to many of the people living under them.

Verse 2’s of AI’s pretty fedupness:

Okay, so Verse 2 sounds like it was specifically written for Donald Trump: “You think you can get away with anything/You always blame someone else for your mistakes/You never admit when you’re wrong”. It probably wasn’t written especially for Mr. Trump, but who knows – maybe AI is pretty fed up with the Trumpster!

Outro:

All right, time to let loose with the outro – sing along – “I’m pretty fed up, I’m pretty fed up/I’m pretty fed up, I’m pretty fed up….

Tags: AI, government