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Long time listener, first time caller.
The war on AI datacenters (and normal ones as a bit of collateral damage) has been going on for a little while now, with those opposed fiercely fighting a lot of these projects pretty much wherever, whenever. It seems to be one of the most bipartisan issues facing the country right now and those who are pro-datacenter have been effectively politically slaughtered. As of a few days ago though, there seems to have been a small little flash point in the thing. I haven't really seen a thread here about this (although definitely could have missed one), and I'm actually a little surprised at it since I do think this is probably one of the biggest culture wars in America of this year. Anyway, curious thoughts on this, etc
From what I can tell, the flashpoint was yesterday when Axios reported (and later posted) a letter from the Ohio RNC to AI companies effectively calling being pro-datacenter politically radioactive. It kinda exploded at this point over Twitter and later Greg Abbott put a thing out about it yesterday after enacting a pause earlier this month. Basically the only one who didn't respond in a politically obvious way was Trump in a presser who was quoted as saying "if I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center." I think this quote right here might be the worst strategic blunder since the Iran War. If I were the DNC, the clip would be on every station in the country
The reaction to these things are incredibly understandable. Their argument effectively goes "they use our water and electricity, provide a service to enhance the surveillance state and the interests of Big Tech, their proponents openly admit that they're gonna take your job, they bully communities, and they don't even pay taxes either, all the while poisoning the communities they leech on with pollution and noise." Personally, I'm honestly quite surprised that political radioactivity is the biggest thing that has happened so far. This seems to be an issue that unites people regardless of political party or affiliation...
...probably because it's being correctly seen as a existential threat to people's lives and livelihoods. Polling against datacenter construction is incredibly poor, arguably being worse than coal or nuclear power plants (yeah I know, different surveys). I think this, if I were to pin a spark on this (there are many), it's the story of the Memphis xAI datacenter and also the lawsuits against Solon Township to effectively bully them into allowing the project. Communities, seeing what happened there and politically, have somewhat backtracked quite a bit where before they were much more open to it. Some of those that haven't are proactively enacting outright bans
If this culture war has one side, who is the other? Silicon Valley, billionaires, etc, seems to be the obvious answer here.
Both Altman and Amodei screwed up public perception big time, although I don't think it's 100% their fault. I imagine though this is basically because they're put in a double bind. If it isn't absolutely economy ending for every other company, the trillions pumped into their valuation will vaporize faster than you can say "AGI," but people tend to believe (correctly so) when someone threatens them (and have especially checkered pasts as both these guys do), that their threats are genuine, so when those PR puff pieces trickle down to the public at large.
The All In guys have tried to pin this on Amodei in particular, but I think some people just see that as them talking their book
They've tried to label the opposition as "China," but that clearly doesn't make much sense given that the problems are genuine. Cremieux has tried to take up the mantle on the issue, but I think people see his arguments are seen as specious and as relying on theoreticals that don't match observations on the ground, and this has I think backfired
Expect to see more bans and moratoriums happening across the country. Will be interesting to watch. Thoughts?
This is a bit of a tangent, but I think there's a 4D chess angle to Trump breaking from the broader Republican Party to say and do unpopular things. He's not up for re-election! It is great for the Republican Party if people believe that all of America's problems are caused by Trump personally, and that without Trump around, downballot Republicans and their 2028 Presidential nominee would do a great job running the country.
As another example, Trump recently tricked a bunch of outlets (including the Rachel Maddow Show blog) into running a story about how Vance and the White House staff wanted to make things more affordable for Americans, while Trump personally thought it was okay for gas to be expensive.
Is this the level of delusion Trump supporters have reached, where Trump doing and saying indefensibly stupid things that contradict non-stupid things other people in the administration say is now just part of some big trick? Seriously, how is it a trick? Is Vance not knowing Trump's position supposed to make him look competent? In what election cycle, anywhere in the world, anywhere in history, has the strategy you've describe worked? Probably never, because it's so stupid I doubt anyone would ever attempt it, and if this is really the best the GOP has they're even dumber than I thought.
Even if I humor you for a second and assume that it would be possibly, then the way they're playing it doesn't make sense. It's not like you see Republican politicians putting up any real opposition to Trump. What happens is they say something, Trump contradicts them, and they either ignore it or try to explain away how they don't really disagree with Trump after all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Vance made any statements about how he advised against the war from the beginning, supported the president out of a sense of duty, but has come to the conclusion that the costs it's borne on Americans mean it's no longer defensible. And he's supposed to be the frontrunner! One would assume he's getting campaign advice from Kamala Harris on how to run as veep to an unpopular incumbent without criticizing the incumbent for the things that are making him unpopular. And he can't get fired or primaried. And behind him they have Marco Rubio, who at the moment seems more concerned with dismantling the government of an irrelevant country we aren't at war with than doing anything about the war he helped convince Trump to start.
Who else do they have who is actually criticizing the president? Ted Cruz is more hawkish on Iran than Trump. Marjorie Taylore Greene is unelectable and supposedly out of politics anyway. And Thomas Massie just lost an election because he wasn't enough of a Trump supporter. Which is another thing; there isn't even a movement among primary candidates to cross Trump. In my own neck of the woods, every single Republican candidate ran on being more in line with Trump than his RINO opponent. The idea that Republicans are going to suddenly, en masse, turn on Trump in 2028 is ludicrous, and the idea that voters would buy a last-minute face turn is even more ludicrous.
Republicans have spent ten years in a civil war with Trump to the point that you still see sitting senators like Cornyn fighting over core positions like immigration — but it’s never enough to convince partisans that the Republican Party isn’t some kind of Trump cult where no dissent is tolerated.
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