“This is the most bipartisan issue since beer.”<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
By Victor Tangermann<\/p>\n\n\n\n Across the entire country, small rural communities<\/a> are standing up<\/a> to the rise of AI data centers, saying the enormous facilities threaten to suck water supplies dry<\/a> and send electricity prices soaring<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the New York Times<\/em> reports<\/a>, conservatives and liberals alike are joining sides on the issue to an astonishing degree \u2014 a home run for any candidate willing to throw their weight behind the phenomenon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere was stunningly little difference for our normally extremely polarized state,\u201d Marquette University Law School Poll director Charles Franklin, who recently found that 70 percent<\/a> of Wisconsin voters say the cons of data centers outweigh the pros, told the newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is the most bipartisan issue since beer,\u201d joked Milwaukee-based comedian Charlie Berens during a March anti-data center rally<\/a> in Southwest Wisconsin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u201cNever-Trumper\u201d to fight data centers in the Great Lakes State, according to the NYT<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond rising electric prices and massive water consumption, critics of AI data centers have also questioned<\/a> their claims of bringing new jobs to rural America. That\u2019s not to mention the palpable backlash<\/a> to AI tech itself, which is being used to justify sweeping layoffs<\/a> across industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t care if you\u2019re a Democrat or Republican, we\u2019re all coming together to fight this,\u201d self-described Republican Starlet Peedle, who\u2019s been fighting a data center project in Lyon Township, Michigan, told the NYT<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, some are starting to question their own political affiliation ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ryan Wagner, a self-described MAGA Republican, who\u2019s also been fighting a data center project in Kalkaska, Michigan, teamed up with a left-leaning environmental activist to fight the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been foes for a long time,\u201d he told the newspaper, referring to Democrats, \u201cbut when it comes down to our backyards, we realized we are really just the same people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Uh-oh, the AI race is bringing the sheeple together and undoing the divisive psyops and media propaganda. Truth be told, they don’t bring in many jobs and you’ll probably see H1-B visa holder Indians show up in your markets and community (try the Folsom, California, Costco near Intel), and the construction workers will most likely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17110,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17109\/revisions\/17110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Conservatives](\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/republicans-democrats-hatred-data-centers.jpg?quality=85&w=1152\")