The majority of Americans are hostile to these infrastructures and the Democrats are taking advantage of this to attack Trump. The Republican Party is therefore developing a strategy to respond
La Rubrica - Outside the Beltway: cronache e analisi di politica Usa
Not just inflation and high prices. Another hot topic in the election campaign for the mid-term elections is that of the data centers needed to power artificial intelligence. According to a recent survey by NBC News, in fact, 69% of Americans oppose the construction of these infrastructures near their community. Notably, 57% of Republicans share this hostility. A hostility that is dictated by various motivations. Americans fear first and foremost the impacts on electricity bills and water consumption. Furthermore, some take their concerns about AI about privacy and job risks onto these infrastructures. It is therefore in this sense that the dossier made its way into the election campaign.
Donald Trump, as he is known, is a strong proponent of data centers. “The only reason communities in the United States shouldn’t want data centers is if they want to remain backward and poor,” he said in late August. “China couldn’t be happier with this movement against data centers,” he added. The American president is therefore moving from a geostrategic perspective, considering the development of AI as a crucial element to safeguard Washington’s competitiveness against Beijing. It is in this context that Trump defends data centers and is opposed to the catastrophist narrative on Artificial Intelligence, fueled by Anthropic.
For their part, Democrats are riding opposition to these infrastructures to hit the Republican Party ahead of Midterms of November. For their part, various Republican parliamentarians and governors are aware of the current unpopularity of data centers and are therefore trying to work out a middle ground between Trump’s position and that of the Democrats. In this sense, the main pollster of the current US president, Tony Fabrizio, argued that “unconditional support for the construction of further data centers for artificial intelligence is a losing position”. He then added that Republicans should support the construction of these infrastructures only if technology companies shoulder the costs. According to Fabrizio, 61% of voters would in fact be in favor of the creation of data centers under certain conditions.
Clearly the road is not smooth sailing for the Republicans. However, it is also not excluded that holding an articulated position, as suggested by Trump’s pollster, may not ultimately benefit them in the November vote. Not to mention that it is not certain that voters will necessarily appreciate the ideological opposition shown by some Asinello exponents. A few days ago, Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich scuttled a bipartisan bill that would have forced technology companies to cover the energy costs of data centers. According to Heinrich the measure would have been insufficient. However, there is no doubt that it would have gone in the direction desired by the majority of the American electorate. Here: it is not far-fetched that this type of attitude could turn into a boomerang in November. In short, the game remains open.
