TRUMP IS RIGHT TO PUT HIS NECK ON THE LINE FOR DATA CENTERS:
On Wednesday, speaking at the White House alongside crypto executives, President Trump noted that he would “absolutely” want a data center in his community.
“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 would absolutely want it because the jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid, are just enormous,” he said.
It was a rare and refreshing defense of infrastructure that has become a bête noire for Republicans and Democrats alike, despite the fact that data centers have dramatically improved life in communities where they’re built — think $50K teacher bonuses, reduced tax burdens for residents and the creation of high-paying jobs.
These facilities are powering a revolution, providing the necessary energy for the huge amounts of compute needed for LLMs to work — and for America to beat China in the AI race.
In a midterm environment where politicians across the board are running from data centers, Trump is right to push back against the anti-data center hysteria and give them some “public relations help” as he put it.
In today’s Commentary newsletter, Abe Greenwald explores “Why People Hate Data Centers:”
When it comes to data centers and AI more generally, it’s not growth alone that can make us feel powerless. The architects and titans behind it all have risen up as dreamlike figures of global consequence. We hang on their pronouncements as if they were a new, self-elected class of remote lawgivers. There’s also the bewildering speed at which this technology is overtaking so many aspects of our lives. Finally, there’s the looming mystery of the technology itself. The more it encroaches on us, the less we understand what it portends.
Whatever arguments are proffered about rising energy prices, water consumption, and sound pollution, I suspect that the deeper objection to AI data centers is that they are hulking concrete monuments to our individual displacement in a world of strange new gods. They may contribute to an unimaginably bright future or something like its opposite. But either way, I understand why people don’t want to look at them every day.
Perhaps though, there’s a way to reframe the issue:
Free messaging tip: instead of saying data center opponents are Chinese dupes, scare them with horror stories about how their Netflix streams will degrade to 480p or, gasp, occasionally crash entirely if we don’t have capacity. Americans will not stand for mild inconvenience.
— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) August 21, 2026
