The Anti-Data Center Coalition is a Supermajority
The short version: The Bulwark's David Wallace-Wells and Tim Miller argue data-center backlash now spans the political spectrum, uniting Americans who feel powerless over rising bills, water use, and land deals.
Our Take
Credit to David Wallace-Wells and Tim Miller on The Bulwark Daily for naming something we've watched build county by county for two years: opposition to data centers isn't a fringe NIMBY complaint anymore, it's a coalition that crosses left, right, and everything in between. When people in rural Virginia, suburban Georgia, and small-town Ohio all start showing up to the same zoning meetings with the same questions about power bills and groundwater, that's not partisanship, that's pattern recognition.
The reason this coalition is so big is that the deal was never really put to a vote. Utility commissions approved rate structures, county boards approved tax abatements, and state legislatures approved incentive packages, often before most residents knew a hyperscale campus was headed their way. "Feeling out of control and powerless," as the hosts put it, isn't an abstraction — it's the accurate description of a process where the people footing the electricity and water costs were the last to hear about it.
If that sounds like your town, don't wait for the next closed-door vote. Check our facility map to see what's already been approved near you, and use our take-action guide to find out how to get in front of the next one instead of reading about it after the fact.
This is GridWatch the USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of The Bulwark, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.