Plus: AOC reaffirms her socialism, the Russia-Ukraine war gets even deadlier, and more…
Donald Trump is fond of data centers: In the previous year, the former president issued an executive directive intended to speed up federal permissions, ease building on government land, and make certain projects eligible for financial incentives, according to The Washington Post. While Trump himself is an advocate, a sizable portion of his party mirrors voters’ concerns that data hubs could burden nearby neighborhoods.
Data centers—the vast facilities required to store the specialized hardware powering AI systems—have risen in prominence as a political issue in recent months.
The scale of building and operating AI models demands immense computing resources; data centers, which consume large quantities of energy, are essential to run these models. A single enormous data center could strain power grids beyond their design capacity, resulting in outages for residents. There is also the possibility that grid-upgrade costs to serve AI firms could be recouped from households through rate hikes shared by all customers.
Nevertheless, if we pursue more AI applications and regard them as potentially transformative, we will need more computing power. And we will need additional data centers. (Although it’s easy to understand why some people resist when confronted with the notion that AI might render many jobs obsolete.)
“If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had an opportunity to land a large AI facility or a data center, I would jump at it because the employment and the tax revenue would be enormous,” Trump commented last week.
This stance contrasts with how some Republican politicians frame the issue. Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a pause on data centers within his state earlier this month, arguing regulators must determine whether the power grid can accommodate the new facilities. (Currently, Texas hosts about 335 data centers, trailing only Virginia in number.) In Wisconsin, the gubernatorial race has featured Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Republican, accusing his rival Democrat David Crowley of being soft on data centers, vowing to shield residents from what he calls a nuisance. In Michigan, Mike Rogers—running for Senate as the Republican against Democrat/socialist Abdul El-Sayed—has called for a moratorium on new data-center construction (a shift from his prior stance). In Florida, Rep. Byron Donalds, who won the Republican primary for governor, pledges to safeguard the state from data centers, reversing his earlier position on the issue.
“The Senate GOP campaign arm, in a private memo to leading AI firms, warns that negative perceptions of U.S. data centers could jeopardize the party’s ability to hold a crucial seat in Ohio,” reported Axios last week. “According to the memo, the National Republican Senatorial Committee argues that Democrats have made data centers a ‘centerpiece’ of their campaign to defeat Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio)—and that this tactic is working. ‘If he loses and data centers carry the blame, politicians nationwide will take notice—and they won’t approach future projects,’ the memo states. ‘This has become a sleeper issue for the entire election cycle.'”
So, why are so many Republicans willing to break with Trump on this issue when loyalty to him has long been a baseline expectation?
“Trump personally cares deeply about this issue,” a source familiar with his thinking told The Washington Post. “You just can’t persuade him to change his mind.” Yet polling suggests other Republicans are better at gauging public sentiment: according to Pew data from March, “roughly one in five Americans or more say they’re unsure about the impact of data centers in each of the five areas we asked about. Others say these facilities have neither a clearly positive nor negative effect in any area or have heard little about data centers.” Today, voters have heard substantially more and formed opinions: a August poll from The Economist/YouGov found that 61 percent of Americans would oppose a data center in their community, including 47 percent of Republicans. More than half of Americans disagree with Trump’s stance on data centers when asked about the issue.
“There are roughly 1,600 data centers in the United States today by one estimate,” Time reports. “They consume about 4% of total U.S. electricity. The largest hub is Virginia, with 184 sites—drawing enough power to supply 2.3 million homes, according to Eisenbach Consulting, a Tyler, Texas–based firm that tracks the industry. Eisenbach’s figures suggest that as much as a quarter of Virginia’s electricity now goes to data centers.” Other counts put the number closer to nearly double. Strengthening the resilience of power grids could pave the way for more localities to host data centers, but in today’s zero-sum political climate: unlikely to happen.
Scenes from New York: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) has renewed her previously lapsed membership in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) after a seven-year hiatus. What could this indicate? Is she preparing for a presidential bid? A Senate campaign? Or something more ambiguous?
QUICK HITS
- “A Russian onslaught of missiles and drones struck a children’s hospital, a school, apartment complexes and distribution centers around Kyiv last week, leaving at least 16 dead. Ukraine, lacking Patriot interceptors, did not shoot down any of the ballistic missiles. In response this week, Ukraine conducted a drone strike that caused a major blaze at one of Russia’s largest oil refineries near Nizhny Novgorod. In Tambov, a warehouse owned by e-commerce giant Wildberries burned as well,” notes The Wall Street Journal. “The air war between Russia and Ukraine has shifted into a new phase. With expanded aerial arsenals and insufficient air defenses, both sides are hammering each other in a brutal contest that is widening destruction and toll on civilians.”
- “Hispanics account for roughly 15% of the U.S. population. The share identifying as religiously unaffiliated grew from 18% in 2013 to 23% in 2025,” reports Axios, citing Public Religion Research Institute data. “Among Latino Catholics, the declines have been historic. An Axios review of Pew data shows the share of Latino adults who identify as Catholic falling from 67% in 2010 to 43% in 2022.”
- Tim Carney has an insightful thread questioning government-produced walkability indices and offering ideas for better measurement:
This approach would be groundbreaking: create a walkability index and then test whether people actually walk more in the places deemed more walkable. https://t.co/CQ1cDW9eHL
— Tim Carney (@TPCarney) August 26, 2026
- Yayoi Kusama, the pop artist famed for her obsession with dots and her explorations of the phallus as a means of healing prior traumas, passed away earlier this week. I admired Kusama, who received support from Donald Judd, a giant in minimalist art.
- Imagine Italian-made AI being used by an antifa group. They’re not sending their best!
Breaking: The U.S. State Department links Portland’s Rose City Antifa to a foreign tech company that provides infrastructure to violent far-left extremist groups.
The Oregon-based militant group has been using Italy-based A/I Collective to disseminate target information,…
— Katie Daviscourt 📸 (@KatieDaviscourt) August 26, 2026
