Across the entire country, small rural communities are standing up to the rise of AI data centers, saying the enormous facilities threaten to suck water supplies dry and send electricity prices soaring.
It’s become such a contentious issue that many Americans are doing something that often feels impossible in the contemporary political landscape: setting aside their often steep differences in politics to come together and oppose proposals for large-scale data centers.
As the New York Times reports, conservatives and liberals alike are joining sides on the issue to an astonishing degree — a home run for any candidate willing to throw their weight behind the phenomenon.
“There was stunningly little difference for our normally extremely polarized state,” Marquette University Law School Poll director Charles Franklin, who recently found that 70 percent of Wisconsin voters say the cons of data centers outweigh the pros, told the newspaper.
“This is the most bipartisan issue since beer,” joked Milwaukee-based comedian Charlie Berens during a March anti-data center rally in Southwest Wisconsin.
In one particularly symbolic act of bipartisan cooperation, the 53-year-old administrator of the Michigan for Jesus Facebook page teamed up with a self-identified “Never-Trumper” to fight data centers in the Great Lakes State, according to the NYT.
The massive outpouring of criticism for the building of data centers has turned into a political lightning rod, attracting the attention of lawmakers from a stunning range of political ideologies. Progressive firebrand Bernie Sanders (D-VT), who called for a nationwide moratorium on the construction of new data centers last year, even joined social conservative and Trump loyalist Josh Hawley (R-MO), who introduced a bill earlier this year to effectively do the same.
Beyond rising electric prices and massive water consumption, critics of AI data centers have also questioned their claims of bringing new jobs to rural America. That’s not to mention the palpable backlash to AI tech itself, which is being used to justify sweeping layoffs across industries.
Many of the projects are enormous in scale and moving at a breakneck pace that has caught many residents by surprise, adding to a feeling of unease and distrust.
“I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or Republican, we’re all coming together to fight this,” self-described Republican Starlet Peedle, who’s been fighting a data center project in Lyon Township, Michigan, told the NYT.
Meanwhile, some are starting to question their own political affiliation ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.
Ryan Wagner, a self-described MAGA Republican, who’s also been fighting a data center project in Kalkaska, Michigan, teamed up with a left-leaning environmental activist to fight the project.
“We’ve been foes for a long time,” he told the newspaper, referring to Democrats, “but when it comes down to our backyards, we realized we are really just the same people.”
More on data centers: Man at City Council Meeting Makes Devastating Case Against Proposed Local Data Center
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