Occupy Springfield
The rogue data centers are making communists of all of us.
This article first appeared in The New Republic.
“What up, Council?” said the comedian J.T. Parr, greeting the Pasadena City Council in a surfer persona. Then he got to the point: “Americans are united in our hatred of data centers. They’re big, ugly water guzzlers.”
He’s right. America the Polarized has found some agreement at last. While President Trump guns it on building data centers, 71 percent of Americans oppose them, including a majority of Republicans.
In Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Texas, Republicans are breaking with Trump and issuing stern warnings about the massive facilities that increasingly pock rural America. And now Humans First, a conservative group that says it supports an “America First AI policy,” is planning a nationwide data center protest on July 18.
Data centers are also shaping up to be a rogue issue putting torque on the midterms. South Florida Representative Byron Donalds, now a Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate in his state, has quietly defied the big guy, pledging to “protect Florida’s families and communities from data centers.” In one ad, he even seems to support government control of electric utilities. (Welcome to the struggle, Comrade Donalds.)
