Data Center Don: Trump’s AI Debacle is a Big Opportunity

This post is by FrameLab contributor Jason Sattler.

If you’re wondering which side you should be on when it comes to the data center divide, Donald Trump has figured it out for you. 

The most unpopular president who hasn’t resigned (yet) keeps championing data centers and attacking Americans fighting them. Between babbling pressers and all-you-can-eat word-salad posts, he proclaims fealty to tech barons with humiliating declarations like “let Data Reign.”

What he doesn’t note, of course, is that this is another of his personal grifts, as his family stands to benefit due to their investments in the AI industry.

Data centers may not be as unpopular as Donald Trump—few things outside of STDs are—but they’re close. And the more voters know about them, the more they hate them. That’s why opposition to new data centers keeps growing, with a majority of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans saying they oppose building them in the area.   

But the polls are clear. Even people in Trump’s MAGA base are rising up against data centers, and not even Trump can shift them.

Taking the High Ground

As George Lakoff has written about extensively, private enterprise relies entirely on the public—our shared roads, power grids, and resources. Big tech inverted that relationship by steamrolling communities, enforcing secrecy, and threatening to bankrupt towns that resist. 

By pushing even conservative voters to prioritize community well-being over corporate profits, this fight offers a defining opportunity to reshape the political debate around progressive values.

Up until now, only a select few Democrats—the House Progressive Caucus, Bernie, AOC, Elizabeth Warren, and the usual suspects on the left—have stepped up to take on the data barons, fearing backlash and the industry's Super PACs' massive war chests.

But Trump’s sudden public PR campaign in favor of data domination means the time for choosing is over for the Democratic Party, also one of the few things as unpopular as Donald Trump. There needs to be one party that puts people over data. 

And it better be Democrats.

Promises Made, Power Drained

Data centers are also just the newest version of the story that has hollowed out America’s middle class: a powerful industry invades a community with lobbyists, renderings, and promises—jobs, investment, the future.

Sometimes it’s Amazon. Sometimes it’s Google. Sometimes it’s a company you’ve never heard of.

They want your land, your water, your power grid, your tax base. Data centers—which house thousands of computer servers to power Silicon Valley companies—are a supercharged corporate attack on the public good. They are energy-guzzling, community polluting monsters that cause destruction and strife everywhere they pop up.

A recent study found that data centers raise the surface temperature of surrounding land by an average of 2°C — up to 9°C in the worst cases — with the effect measurable up to 10 kilometers away. More than 340 million people already live inside a data center heat island. Your town isn’t just being asked to host a facility. It’s being asked to get warmer. And in exchange, you get to pay up to 25% more for energy.

This impressive array of maladies has made the issue so toxic that Republicans in the decisive swing state of Wisconsin tried to give the Democratic nominee for governor, Dave Crowley, the nickname “Data Center Dave.”

That’s a tough move when you’re in the party that must bow to the guy who is proud to be the Data Center Don.

The Bills Are Real. The Jobs Aren’t

Trump’s biggest problem picking up the AI banner now is that tech gave away the game by advertising AI as a job killer that will take our jobs. And the PR worked.

Most Americans, especially younger ones, fear AI will destroy their prospects; the few jobs a data center creates, mostly in security and facilities, can't replace entire sectors. Goldman Sachs notes AI added basically zero to GDP, mirroring the 1990s fiber boom where millions of miles of cable sat dark for a decade. Even Jerome Powell confirmed data center expansion is 'probably pushing inflation up.'

Trump’s massive deficits and tax cuts have provided a sugar high that’s kept the AI fervor going. But that cannot go on forever. Soon a recession may be piled on top of skyrocketing prices.

This all gives Democrats the gift of foresight and a chance to take a stand now, promising that when the dust settles, the people are protected and the data pushers pay.

They’ve Already Picked A Side

AI companies are not hiding who they want in power.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp said on CNBC recently that his technology “disrupts humanities-trained — largely Democratic — voters, and makes their economic power less.” He wasn’t warning anyone. He was pitching his technology to the GOP as a political weapon. Sam Altman told BlackRock intelligence would be “a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter.” Yay, another bill to keep up the life we can’t keep up with.

Your tax exemptions fund the infrastructure. Your energy grid runs the servers. Your neighbors pay the electric bill. 

And this story, with its real-world connections, offers Democrats a singular chance to get on the right side of some of the century's biggest issues.

AI. Crypto. Trump. All three are the same con with different wigs. 

The monetization schemes may vary, but here’s what unites them: antipathy for democracy. And that’s what fuses tech feudalists and the old-school GOP melange of polluters, Wall Street, and warmongers. 

Our tech lords counted on what every lord before them knew: people getting the short end will blame each other before they ever blame their betters. But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

For generations, Democrats benefited from Franklin D. Roosevelt asking America to judge him by the enemies he made. Now is the time to pick the only side that’s still available in this fight, the one Donald Trump is not on.

How To Push Democrats for Their Own Good

Democrats have a chance to do something Democrats never do: get ahead of a crisis. 

The struggle over data centers is a struggle over who defines the future. Democrats have avoided wedge issues just like this for decades. Taking a stand now can inspire disaffected voters to unite with communities fighting destructive extraction, soaring energy costs, and corporate tax cuts. 

Call your local Democrats. Demand local control over resources and contracts. Communities have been bravely standing up to the richest men ever to live. It's time for Democrats to join and even lead them.

Jason Sattler is LOLGOP on BlueSky and pretty much every other social media platform. His writing has appeared in USA TODAY, Wired.com, the New York Daily News and Alternet.