Greetings from the last leg of my long-planned family trip. I'll be back in the saddle and on Discord full-time in a couple of days. Thank you for your patience while I took some time with my family before the midterms. I (and my family) really appreciate it.
Okay, now on to this week's strategy memo.
Introduction
Artificial intelligence is the technological, cultural, economic, and health issue of our time. And it's an issue where most Democrats have been shockingly silent. There are exceptions, of course, but most have either offered basic platitudes or avoided the issue altogether. The reasons for this bizarre choice range from ignorance of a complex, emerging technology to fear of being targeted by Super PACs funded by AI companies.
Either way, the party is ceding a massive political opportunity in this election and beyond. We are in the very early stages of AI's political impact, particularly when it comes to job loss. Concern about AI will grow exponentially in the coming years — and if we want to have credibility in that moment, we need to be talking about it now.
AI — how to use it (and not use it), and how to talk about it — will be a major theme of Message Box Pro in the coming years. Today's topic is the politics of data centers, because that is the most immediately pressing AI issue with the greatest political implications for candidates up and down the ballot this fall.
Broad, Bipartisan Opposition
The polling on AI shows some specific concerns, particularly among younger Americans (who tend to be more familiar with new technologies), but mostly reflects a wait-and-see attitude. Folks don't yet know enough to draw hard and fast opinions — definitely some concern, some optimism, and a lot of questions. Democrats tend to be more concerned, Republicans a little less so.
The construction of data centers in local areas is the AI-related issue drawing real, intense opposition. There are roughly 4,000 data centers across the U.S., with new ones being planned every day. These facilities power the massive compute needs of AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta. Without them, those companies fall behind in the AI arms race — so they want as many data centers built as quickly as possible, local impacts be damned.
You've probably seen videos of large protests or raucous town meetings related to the construction of new data centers. Those viral videos can be misleading in our algorithmically powered media ecosystem, where intense engagement among a certain segment of the population can masquerade as mass opinion. However, in this case, those videos represent something real in public opinion.
First, a January Pew poll found that 75% of Americans have heard or read a lot about data centers. While there is almost certainly not a tremendous depth of knowledge, there is a rapidly growing awareness.
Second, there is broad, bipartisan opposition to local construction of data centers. A March Gallup poll found that 71% of Americans would oppose the construction of a data center in their area.
In addition to the strong bipartisan opposition, I am struck by the fact that 48% strongly oppose, while only 7% strongly favor. That intensity advantage is notable and speaks to the issue's potential power.
Finally, while most opposition to data centers stems from a NIMBY instinct, there is growing concern about the massive push to build as many data centers as possible in as many places as quickly as possible. A Reuters poll from early June found that 64% of Americans thought building data centers at a rapid pace across the U.S. was a "bad thing."
