Even though I ran a political media company for four years, I’ve largely avoided writing about politics, and I’m not about to make a habit of it now. But the politics around data centers has come to dominate coverage of AI, and how those politics play out over the next few months will likely determine not only the course of Trump’s final two years in office, but who inherits the Presidency in 2028.
Until we can see the monster, we tend to ignore the monster. With their massive appetites for energy, land, capital, and water, data centers have become tangible manifestations of Big Tech’s otherwise incorporeal impact on society. Data centers give the monster a body, a tractable container through which to air out a dog’s breakfast of grievances against not only the tech industry, but also the corporations, politicians, and financiers profiting from its concentrated power.
As the Times pointed out recently, opposition to data centers has become “the most bipartisan issue since beer.” So why do both the left and the right hate data centers? Because they play into a remarkable mix of political trigger points, all of which inflame deeply American beliefs around personal freedom, social justice, and economic inequality.
For the left, data centers hasten climate change, devalue labor, and manifest long-held grievances over the kind of gilded age inequalities that have driven most of Bernie Sanders’ political career.
For the right, data centers are proof of deep conspiracies by shadowy cabals of evil doers. I’ve learned to never underestimate America’s fanatical belief in conspiracies, and data centers are tailor made: Back room deals between local governments and tech lobbyists, shell companies buying up land, bunker like structures filled with satanically humming machines, oligarchic pronouncements about the singularity. Clearly dark forces at work!
The right’s deep libertarian streak has underpinned tech’s rise over the past three decades, with libertarian standard bearers like Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen ascending to positions of power in the GOP. But cracks are showing in the tech/libertarian alliance thanks to the public’s fear of losing personal agency to AI overlords. And where might one fight back against the loss of that agency? By opposing data centers, naturally.
With a bipartisan, populist uprising in the works, the GOP and its dear leader are in a bind. Trump happily sang the tech industry’s tune last year, issuing an executive order banning state regulation of AI. But on this issue, local politicians can’t afford to go along. “Bad policy and even worse politics” responded Trump loyalist Ron DeSantis, who also happens to be governor of Florida.
The GOP’s bind is exacerbated by the hundreds of millions in bribes donations that helped elect Trump in the first place, and the hundreds of millions more proffered to secure Trump’s fealty to Big Tech’s playbook. After forking over that amount of tribute, tech leaders expect that the President will dance to their tune. But as the world knows, our President is a terrible dancer, and an even worse partner. He does whatever it takes to win, and right now, data centers are a losing issue.
Trump seems to be uncertain how to respond, and his recent moves have only exacerbated the debate. Issuing vaguely worded, voluntary, and secretive frameworks only aggravate conspiracy theorists and embolden local politicians to oppose the administration’s AI policies. If the past is any guide, we’ll likely see Trump come out against big tech just as the midterms heat up – a position he’s taken whenever it’s been politically convenient. Whether it’ll work this time, however, feels far less certain. Something big is brewing at the intersection of tech and politics, and I sense we’re witnessing a tipping point that will be written about for generations.
—