C-WIN: Uniting against data centers
: The issue that transcends politics

Seldom have our political differences been more pronounced. Republicans and Democrats are at odds on a myriad of issues, and the bitter polarization of the American polity is the result.

That’s how it seems, anyway. But semblances can be deceptive. Yes, the schism between Right and Left appeared irreconcilable in 2024, when Donald Trump was re-elected to the White House. But much has changed since then. Trump’s polls are at their nadir, with few Americans supporting his policies.

That doesn’t mean MAGA is embracing the Democratic Party in a big Kumbaya hug or vice versa, of course. But party fealty has eroded as citizens turn away from hot button cultural topics and contemplate the things that directly affect their daily lives, including the economy, international relationships – and especially, public trust resources. After many years of acrimonious bickering, Americans are finding that many of their concerns transcend their politics.

Consider the evidence: in Wyoming, Republican Congressional candidates are opposing the privatization of public lands in clear defiance of earlier Trump initiatives. In Virginia, Iowa and Texas, Republicans are vigorously defending wind power projects – again, in complete opposition to Trump. And perhaps most dramatically, massive grassroots resistance to unrestricted data center construction has emerged across the entire country, pitting voters of all persuasions against elite AI corporations and their political enablers.

The accelerating rage against data centers is particularly noteworthy because the roots of the conflict are resource based. These sprawling complexes compile the gigantic datasets used to “train” AI models. But their very size – one center planned for Utah was envisioned at 40,000 acres until it was recently reduced to “only” 20,000 acres – disrupts rural landscapes and agriculture, upends community planning goals, and destroys vast tracts of wildlife habitat: impacts that anger most citizens, regardless of political affiliation.

The prime movers to data center opposition are power and water. The data center originally planned for Utah would’ve required 2.5 times the electricity used by the entire state. Such demands are unsustainable, especially for the western states, where about 30% of the electricity comes from hydropower; as climate change-induced droughts become more common and prolonged, hydroelectric generation will diminish accordingly. Further, data centers require enormous amounts of water to cool the vast arrays of servers that process AI queries and generate responses. The “hyperscale” centers that are now under construction or planned each need from 1 million to 5 million gallons of water daily, or enough for 40,000 to 50,000 households.

Millions of Americans – right, left and center – understand what these figures mean for them: less reliable power and water supplies coupled with skyrocketing rates. And they don’t think the trade-off – rapid responses to abstruse questions or the capacity to create amusing images – is worth it. They are finding that many of the people they considered political opponents share their conviction that public trust resources – most notably water – should benefit the people, not gigantic corporations, tech billionaires and pols.

This growing discontent presents a stellar opportunity for Americans to rediscover our common interests and aspirations. If we can’t agree on everything, it’s clear we’re very much on the same page with data centers, water policy and public land protection. We need to strengthen our nascent bonds, and move forward on these critical issues – together.