They’re fighting EVs with righteous rage:
“Those batteries are a threat!
They’ll bring the power grid to its knees—
Our nation’s doomed, you bet!”
“Save the grid! Protect the land!
No EVs in our state!”
Then someone says, “Data centers?”
“Now that’s progress! Build them great!”
A thousand acres, concrete walls,
A million servers hum.
They’ll drink the power night and day—
And still they’ll say, “More! Come!”
“AI is where the future lies!
Build another one!
If it takes a gigawatt or two,
Well, that’s the price of fun!”
Forget the lines, forget the water,
Forget what power costs.
If servers need another plant,
Well, that’s just progress lost—
No, wait—progress gained! Of course it is,
When servers pay the bill.
But heaven help the Chevy Bolt
That wants to charge uphill.
A family plugs in after work?
Scandal! Shame! Alarm!
But fifty thousand servers hum?
“Why, that can do no harm!”
“Cars should burn good gasoline!
That’s freedom!” comes the cry.
“Just don’t ask where the power goes
When our AI goes sky-high.”
They love the free market—
Till the meter starts to spin.
They hate government subsidies—
Unless their servers win.
They preach of coal and oil and gas,
Of energy made here,
Then cheer another server farm
That guzzles power by the year.
And when the grid needs billions
To carry all that load,
They say, “Of course the taxpayers
Should help us pave the road!”
So let’s make one thing crystal clear,
Since nuance seems to bore:
An EV that charges at your home
Is what we must deplore.
But an AI colossus
That consumes a city’s share?
Put up the ribbon-cutting tent—
And call the governor there!
Maybe it’s not electricity.
Maybe that’s not the fight.
Maybe some electrons are woke,
While others are patriotically right.
Because the grid has learned the rule
That politics demands:
Charge your car—you’re killing us.
Power AI—you’re saving man.
“The Electricity They Love” — original poem by Don Watkins, written with ChatGPT (GPT-5.6 Luna), September 15, 2026.