[24783] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] Script of my national radio report yesterday on
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lauren Weinstein)
Tue Oct 20 11:48:22 2026
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2026 08:16:39 -0700
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
To: privacy-dist@vortex.com
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This is script from my national radio report yesterday on data center
issues impacts on the upcoming election. As always there may have been
minor wording variations from this script as I presented this report
live on air.
- - -
So yes, the election is just two weeks away. Two years ago at the last
election, data centers weren't an issue at all in mainstream public
discussions. Even a year ago they weren't really a significant issue
nationally. Today, they are one of the biggest election issues across
the country, in both rural and urban areas.
Data center concerns are now in election advertising and candidate
interviews. At candidate debates, you'll hear questions about data
centers, sometimes very angry ones, that are right up there with more
traditional voter issues.
One reason this happened is that there was a virtual explosion of
voter awareness regarding the immense negative impact data centers can
have on communities, at the same time that there's been a massive push
by Big Tech to build vastly more of these enormous data centers mainly
to support AI operations. And while something between 70-80% of
operational, under construction, or being planned data centers are in
predominantly red states, this is very much a bipartisan issue, which
are very rare these days in the U.S.
Voters in both parties have been coming together to fight against data
centers in communities, with something like 75% of persons opposing
them, with very little difference between the two parties on this
issue. And this is all despite the fact that the federal government is
currently very much aligned with Big Tech pushing massive data center
construction, which suggests that the federal government is not
aligned with the sentiment of the vast majority of voters in both
parties on this issue. The federal government claims that data centers
will make communities rich, but data centers usually don't create many
long term jobs once construction finishes, and many people don't
consider increased community revenues to compensate for the many
negatives of data centers.
These can include air pollution from generators, 24/7 noise, boosted
electricity rates, potential water shortages, and many more problems,
often targeting beautiful, previously unspoiled rural areas where
families have had farms and other homes for generations, now being
ripped apart primarily for AI.
Add the general distaste for AI misinformation, AI reportedly involved
in suicides and murder, concerns over AI wiping out jobs, and other
negatives, plus a general distrust of the Big Tech billionaires trying
to get even richer by pushing this stuff, and it's easy to see how we
got here.
The result of all this is that candidates in both parties, who may
have been big boosters of data centers, sometimes planned under
nondisclosure agreements that kept their communities in the dark, are
now often scrambling to switch positions at the last moment and hoping
that voters won't remember the candidates' previously pro-data center
positions. This doesn't seem to really be working though in most
cases. Polls suggest that for many voters, a candidate being or having
been pro-data center can be more important in terms of a candidate
being voted AGAINST, than virtually any other issue or even political
party affiliations, because data centers and other AI concerns cut
right to the heart of so many quality of life issues.
We'll see how this all plays out in a couple of weeks. But it seems
clear that one way or another, 2026 is the year that data centers went
from being a sleeper issue to top of mind for voting Americans
everywhere, and U.S. politics have likely changed permanently as a
result.
- - -
L
- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Mastodon: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren
Signal: By request on need to know basis
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
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