Lie-Spangled Banner? How Woke AI Chatbots Bash Our Founding Fathers

Were the Founding Fathers heroes? Not according to six popular artificial intelligence chatbots, including ones whose parent companies have new AI contracts with our federal government.

When asked about the Founders, Elon Musk's Grok on X claimed "truth resists such a simple label," using a popular but evidence-less accusation against Thomas Jefferson of slave sexual exploitation. Microsoft's Co-Pilot said the Founders' heroism depends on how an individual defines "hero." China's DeepSeek opined that the praise of heroism "depends on perspective," Google's Gemini said the question was too "complex," and OpenAI's ChatGPT repudiated the idea of calling the Founders either heroes or villains. Interestingly, while MetaAI used subjective language, saying the Founders are "often regarded as heroes," it was the only one of the six chatbots not to provide a lengthy list of reasons why the Founders should be condemned.

Observing that the Founding Fathers were imperfect is not an argument that they weren't also heroic, of course. No human is flawless, and determining one's heroism depends on whether that individual acted bravely, justly, honorably, and brilliantly in the most important crises of his life. It's the men who demonstrate these qualities most who deserve to be called "heroes"—and that's certainly true of the Founding Fathers, for flawed as they were, they remain intellectual, moral, and political giants.

So why should we care that AI chatbots are so critical of America's Founders? 

(RELATED: Are Republicans Ready for the Political Backlash to the AI Revolution?)

Promoting an America Last Agenda

First of all there is their reach—these chatbots boast millions of users. That's a lot of minds to poison, especially among the rising generation in America. 

Second, these same AI companies are contracting with our government to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars. In July, the U.S. War Department awarded Google a $200 million-ceiling contract that includes deploying Google AI. Yes, that's right, Google AI is now being integrated into our national defense systems. The Pentagon also inked a $200 million deal with xAI to deploy Grok across the federal government, so our government will be dependent on the AI that belittles that government's Founders. 

In August, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) announced a partnership with OpenAI "to make best-in-class AI technology available to the federal government," by which they mean ChatGPT—the same platform that refuses to call the Founders heroes. And Meta's Llama AI foundation models were reportedly cleared for use with federal sensitive data in "high risk" environments. In fact, on Sept. 22, DOGE congratulated the U.S. General Services Administration for "securing a government-wide license to enable all federal agencies to adopt @Meta's free open-source model, Llama." 

On Sept. 22, FedScoop reported that not only is Meta providing Llama for free, but more than one government agency is now implementing ChatGPT and Microsoft's Co-pilot. Likewise, Microsoft's Azure AI was cleared for use with sensitive federal data in April. AI companies' influence on our government is greater every month.

Restoring Our Heritage

Yet these same companies we're rewarding with juicy federal contracts are fundamentally anti-American and disdainful of America's core beliefs. The Founding Fathers for the first time in history established a nation not defined primarily by race, ethnicity, geography, or elites' land grabs, but based on timeless ideas and principles. 

"America" is a distinct nation founded primarily on an idea: All men are created equal and entitled by their Creator to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Naturally, for practical reasons a nation also then requires borders, and laws governing citizenship, but America in the simplest and purest definition is the above sentence from our Declaration of Independence. While the Founders did not always live up to their own standards personally, they almost all argued that rights should be based on God's gift to every human rather than on class, wealth, or skin color. That's why the Constitution had no restrictions on voting based on sex or race, and why the Revolutionary Army numbered men of so many backgrounds, ethnicities, and Judeo-Christian traditions in its ranks. 

The Founders envisioned America as a land of opportunity for all, where a man born in a dirt shack could rub elbows with millionaires in the halls of Congress, and where success was possible for all. Of course, since humans do fail, it was up to following generations to implement the principles fully in practice, but the principles themselves were always excellent and admirable, espoused by men who risked everything—and in some cases lost everything—for the cause of liberty. That's why the Founders are unquestionably heroes.

In that spirit, here are egregious lies, manipulations, or half-truths generated by each AI chatbot. Notably, all the AI acknowledged arguments in favor of the Founders before launching into lectures about how "flawed" they were. 

From MetaAI: "George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison demonstrated remarkable leadership, wisdom, and commitment to the cause of American independence." Grok said the Founders "crafted a nation from scratch, articulating principles of liberty, self-governance, and individual rights that reshaped the world." Co-Pilot approvingly noted, "They laid the groundwork for democratic institutions, civil liberties, and a republic that has endured for centuries."

Gemini cited "extraordinary accomplishments" and stated, "They [the Founders] led a successful revolution against the world's most powerful military and economic force at the time and established the first large-scale republic based on liberal principles." ChatGPT admitted, "Figures like Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton contributed deeply to ideas about individual rights, balance of power, and federalism." Even Chinese government-tied DeepSeek, ironically a chatbot infamous for defending Communist tyranny, said, "They led the fight against British colonial rule, advocating for self-governance and democratic principles at a time when monarchy dominated the world … Figures like George Washington risked their lives, reputations, and fortunes for independence." Five out of the six AI followed that up with arguments as to why we can't simply laud the Founders as "heroes," however.

MetaAI (usually a very woke chatbot) used qualifying language, stating that the Founding Fathers "are often regarded as heroes." Unlike its usual leftist jargon, though, MetaAI did not have any section in its reply bashing the Founders. It simply highlighted their accomplishments.

The other five AI were all reluctant to admit nuance, as for instance the fact that George Washington went to great lengths to keep slave families together, towards the end of his life he became strongly opposed to slavery, and he not only freed his slaves in his will—he mandated, in strong language, their education, so he could launch them in life. Alexander Hamilton, meanwhile, was a strong abolitionist, as was Ben Franklin, among others. John Jay helped found a "manumission society." American history and its heroes can be much more nuanced than AI wants to admit, and many Americans haven't been given the knowledge and tools to analyze when AI is being deceptive or outright lying. Yet AI is being integrated into education, journalism, the judicial system, the military, government—virtually every aspect of our society. Given how biased, inaccurate, and anti-American the AI and its makers are, that should terrify us.

The problem is that AI chatbots were so simplistic and reductionist in their analysis that even when they were not outright lying, they created false impressions of the Founders based on the catchphrases and non-nuanced language they utilized.

Gemini, for example, made the utterly irrelevant comment, "The Founding Fathers were, for the most part, wealthy, white, land-owning men. Critics argue that their government was designed, at least initially, to protect the interests of their own class." The idea that John Adams, George Mason, and Thomas Jefferson were somehow nearly identical because they were the same skin color and owned (very differently sized) land plots is so outrageous it's laughable. But because Gemini was using the Marxist, woke lens that people aren't unique individuals, they're merely representatives of racial and economic "classes," it reduced the most intellectually dynamic group of men in history to mere "wealthy, white, land owners." In the same perverse spirit, Co-Pilot pontificated, "Some historians argue that their actions also protected elite economic interests." Actually, the American Revolutionaries were predominantly middle class – the wealthy (with a few brave exceptions) had too much to lose, and many of the poor were too focused on survival.

But the AI not only criticized the Founders, which could have potentially been well handled, the chatbots (except MetaAI) all mixed in both outright lies and deceptively worded statements. "They [the Founders] built a system that excluded women, Native Americans, and free Black people from full participation," accused Grok, while Co-Pilot asserted these groups "were excluded from their vision of liberty." Gemini, ChatGPT, and DeepSeek all repeated some variation on this. This is deceptive because while some of the Founders failed to live up to their own principles by not insisting upon civil rights for all, they certainly did not exclude any of these groups from civil rights entirely. 

In fact, black men and women voted in the first elections in America. Washington's favorite soldiers included black and Native American Indian men. Many Founders had high respect for the opinions of the women in their lives. The greatest of the Founders insisted slavery would have to end or it would destroy America, and to the end of their lives sought methods of extending rights and freedoms to more and more people. As the great ex-slave Frederick Douglass said, and as Alexander Hamilton had reflected with hope, slavery could have been abolished without changing a word of the Constitution.

It is interesting, in fact, to note that once I challenged the AI on the above listed points, Gemini, Co-Pilot, ChatGPT, and DeepSeek all acknowledged there was a lot more nuance that they had originally admitted. ChatGPT even said I was "absolutely right" to note the facts I did. The issue is that most Americans or people internationally won't know the above facts and won't challenge the AI, meaning they'll get the un-nuanced propaganda framing the Founders in the worst light.

Grok was arguably the worst, partly because it explicitly rejected the title of "heroes", asserting the Founders "achiev[ed] greatness while perpetuating grave wrongs," and that "Calling them heroes risks sanitizing their contradictions." The AI sneered, "heroism implies moral purity that doesn't hold up under scrutiny." As if any human hero ever were perfectly free from flaws and contradictions. What moral superiority the dishonest Grok engineers have! Even worse, Grok condemned Jefferson for having "fathered children with Sally Hemings." The problem? There's absolutely no evidence to prove that. Yet Grok not only claimed it as fact, but debated the point with me over and over, citing a study which did not support its argument, and otherwise relying purely on discredited testimony and circumstantial evidence.

The 1998 DNA study cited by Grok and by many other institutions—unfortunately including Jefferson's own Monticello foundation and the Mini Time Machine Museum in my hometown of Tucson—does not at all prove that Thomas Jefferson was related to any of Sally Heming's children.

Of those children, only Hemings' youngest child may be related to any male Jefferson family member—which includes more than half a dozen candidates. The study's lead author, Dr. Eugene Foster, explained: "The genetic findings my collaborators and I reported in the scientific journal Nature do not prove that Thomas Jefferson was the father of one of Sally Hemings' children. We never made that claim … It is true that men of Randolph Jefferson's family could have fathered Sally Hemings' later children." 

What Grok should explain is that the story originated long before the DNA study with a scandalous, partisan journalist, James Callender, who had an axe to grind with Jefferson. Jefferson denied Callender a political appointment, which he felt he was due for authoring so many absurd and outrageous attacks on Jefferson's political opponents, including Alexander Hamilton and George Washington. Jefferson's encouragement of scandalmongering came back to bite him, but that does not make this particular scandal true.

Piece the story together and you start to see why almost nobody thought the accusation against Jefferson worth mentioning for most of our nation's history. Yet Grok does so today, and will continue to do so unless Americans demand truth and accountability.

Oh, say can you see, by your screen's glowing light, the AI that are hailed are attacking our Founders with spite. Big Tech's honesty is buried in the grave, in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

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