{"slug": "and-now-maga-and-mtg-even-have-joined-the-anti-data-center-movement", "title": "And Now, MAGA—and MTG, Even!—Have Joined the Anti–Data Center Movement", "summary": "A growing bipartisan coalition, including MAGA activists and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, is joining the anti-data center movement amid concerns over water, power, light, noise, and air pollution. New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a yearlong moratorium on data-center construction, alarming AI lobbyists who fear the precedent could spread. Polls show seven in 10 Americans oppose data centers, including a majority of Republicans.", "body_md": "The mass mobilization against data centers is\ncoming to a boil this week, and the tech aristocracy is turning paranoid. No\nwonder: The AI zealots of Silicon Valley have staked their souls on President\nTrump’s [commitment to\nblitz-scaling these rural facilities](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/accelerating-federal-permitting-of-data-center-infrastructure/).\n\nOn Tuesday, New York Governor [Kathy Hochul signed an\nexecutive order](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/nyregion/new-york-data-center-moratorium-hochul.htmlhttps:/www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/nyregion/new-york-data-center-moratorium-hochul.html) imposing a yearlong statewide moratorium on\ndata-center construction. This panics the AI overlords. If a commie-style ban\ncan make it in pro-business New York, it can make it anywhere.\n\n“The real worry in the industry isn’t New York\nspecifically, it is the precedent,” [said](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/15/i-wouldnt-call-it-panic-industry-quails-at-hochuls-data-center-pause-00998127) [Joseph Hoefer, a key\nAI lobbyist](https://monumentadvocacy.com/team-members/joseph-hoefer/), about the response of Silicon Valley to Hochul’s move. “The concern\nis real, and it moved fast.”\n\nAnd then there’s the mounting popular disgust with facilities that guzzle water and power from rural communities, giving nothing back.\n\n“Data centers—why would you want that?” Tucker\nCarlson [said recently on a podcast](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/K3tLWaHvxSQ). “Why are you\ntelling me all of the bad things that are going to happen, not telling me\nreally any of the good things, and then telling me that it’s inevitable and I\ncan’t have electricity or water because the machines need it?”\n\nIndeed. We know that data centers [drain water reserves](https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/land-lines-magazine/articles/land-water-impacts-data-centers/) and [strain electrical grids](https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-huge-surge-in-data-center-opposition-groups-across-40-states-12176693). But their[ round-the-clock “brute\nforce” lighting also eliminates dark nights](https://darksky.org/news/data-center-light-pollution-darkskys-statement-on-responsible-development/), [wreaking havoc on the\ncircadian rhythms of humans and animals](https://darksky.org/news/data-center-light-pollution-darkskys-statement-on-responsible-development/).\n\nAs for air pollution, according to [a recent study](https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/analyzing-air-pollution-health-economic-risks-from-ai-data-centers/), just one data\ncenter in Northern Virginia pumps out enough aerosolized waste to cause\nrespiratory diseases and premature deaths [to the tune of $53\nmillion to $99 million in health damages annually](https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/analyzing-air-pollution-health-economic-risks-from-ai-data-centers/).\n\nAnd then there’s the headache- and\ninsomnia-inducing [noise pollution](https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/communities-are-raising-noise-pollution-concernsabout-data-centers). No wonder s[even in 10](https://news.gallup.com/poll/709772/americans-oppose-data-centers-area.aspx) Americans now\noppose data centers, including [a majority of Republicans](https://news.gallup.com/poll/709772/americans-oppose-data-centers-area.aspx).\n\nCaleb Max, [another AI lobbyist](https://www.capitolcnct.com/cs-caleb-max), [describes](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/15/i-wouldnt-call-it-panic-industry-quails-at-hochuls-data-center-pause-00998127) this polling\non data centers as “devastating” and [warns](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/15/i-wouldnt-call-it-panic-industry-quails-at-hochuls-data-center-pause-00998127), “If the\nindustry doesn’t wake up quick and start solving this, it’s going to get a lot\nworse.”\n\nAll of which brings us to tomorrow, July 18,\nwhen [Humans First](https://www.humansfirst.com/), an activist\ngroup fronted by staunch America First conservatives and [supported by Marjorie\nTaylor Greene](https://www.eenews.net/articles/marjorie-taylor-greene-blasts-trump-over-ai-environmental-impacts/), [is planning](https://www.axios.com/2026/06/18/conservatives-protest-ai-data-centers) a national day\nof protest to fight the facilities across the country, from Alabama to New\nMexico, Missouri to Idaho, West Virginia to Wyoming.\n\nWith conservatives in the fight, AI’s foes can no longer be dismissed as tree-huggers, degrowthers, and union thugs. This leaves almost nothing in Silicon Valley’s rhetorical arsenal.\n\nThe idea that the data centers are noble citadels in the AI war with China doesn’t exactly fire up the popular imagination.\n\nThe 2010s concept that our Silicon Valley overlords are entitled, as geniuses, to turn American towns into sacrifice zones—that also rings hollow.\n\nSo this week, the oligarchs resorted to the last refuge of a scoundrel: They described the protests as a psyop.\n\nTrump megadonor Marc Andreessen [amplified a thread](https://x.com/pmarca/status/2068437642690388201) alleging that\nHumans First is really an anti-ICE socialist outfit. The thread pointed to a\nMarch article about Humans First called “[Built to Deceive: How the\nEffective Altruist Machine Infiltrated the Conservative Right on AI](https://x.com/JordanSchachtel/status/2034004098308071931),” by Jordan\nSchachtel, an AI zealot with [Blaze and Breitbart bylines](https://www.jordanschachtel.com/general-5) and a Substack\ncalled [The Dossier](https://www.dossier.today/). (On Friday, Schachtel\nargued in the newsletter AG—yes, American Greatness—that data centers power\n“the new American Industrial Revolution.” )\n\nAspiring trillionaire Elon Musk, along with mere billionaire David Sacks, co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, showered X love on Schachtel’s gotcha when it came out.\n\nBut the exposé is not as revelatory as they\nthink it is. Schachtel chronicles how a small group of Effective Altruism activists committed\nto AI safety—not socialism—fostered Humans First to engage conservatives in the\nfight against data centers. Then they handed it off to them. That sounds like\ncoalition-building, not deceit. (The “[pro-human](https://humanstatement.org/)” mobilization against data centers has\nbeen [ideologically diverse](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/888841/pro-human-ai-declaration-fli) from the\nstart.)\n\nIn May, Humans First published [an open letter](https://www.humansfirst.com/executive-order-letter) urging Trump\nto pump the brakes on data-center construction: “We write as committed America\nFirst leaders to thank you for considering an Executive Order to vet\npotentially dangerous frontier artificial intelligence (AI) models before they\nare released.”\n\nThis remarkable appeal, both populist and pro-regulation, is signed by marquee rabble-rouser Steve Bannon, as well as other leading lights of America First, the MAGA splinter group.\n\n[Amy Kremer](https://www.humansfirst.com/amykremer), another\nsignatory and the chair of Humans First, is an inveterate Tea Partier who\nfounded Women for Trump and [organized](https://apnews.com/article/georgia-republican-party-amy-kremer-rnc-a0a52c22e20bdb0b1fc9eff4071c1db4) the rally that\nspun into the January 6, 2021 insurrection in Washington.\n\n[Cathy Latham](https://www.humansfirst.com/cathylatham), who also\nsigned the letter, is a former Georgia elector who was indicted in 2023 for\nsigning “alternate ballots” certifying Trump as president ([Trump pardoned her](https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2025/11/10/president-trump-pardons-defendants-georgia-election-interference-case/)). Outside of\ndata centers, Latham’s interests include “advocacy for transparent,\nnon-ideological education that prioritizes critical thinking, American history,\nand conservative values over ‘woke’ or Marxist influences.”\n\nKremer, for her part, [considers](https://www.businessinsider.com/amy-kremer-humans-first-ai-data-center-nationwide-protest-2026-6) the\ndata-center protests “the most important fight of our lifetime” because “this technology\ncould wipe us off the face of the planet.” This week, she [wrote](https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2026/07/14/ai_hyperscale_data_centers_are_going_to_power_the_next_tea_party_revolt_1194200.html) in\nRealClearEnergy, “The same disconnect that gave rise to the Tea Party in 2009\nis happening again in 2026. Instead of a battle over bailouts and Obamacare,\nthis time the battle is over runaway big tech, dangerous AI, and AI hyperscale\ndata centers.”\n\nThe right comes by its skittishness about data centers honestly. Even Schachtel concedes: “Their AI skepticism might be fairly perceived as genuine, rooted in years of commentary on transhumanism and civilizational risk involving Silicon Valley elites having power over the average American.”\n\nSo have right- and left-wing populists really made common cause at last—or is someone playing someone? If the left is pulling the levers, America Firsters may end up supporting green policies or government regulation. If the right’s in charge, DSA types might have to recognize that conservatives, in Schachtel’s words, “arrived at doomer-adjacent conclusions through a distinctly conservative and Biblical lens.”\n\nNot bad. The only losers are the oligarchs. And religious tolerance, along with a government that works for the people, seem like a pretty American place to converge.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/and-now-maga-and-mtg-even-have-joined-the-anti-data-center-movement", "canonical_source": "https://newrepublic.com/article/213202/anti-data-center-movement-maga-marjorie-taylor-greene", "published_at": "2026-07-17 15:50:24+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-17 22:21:09.913561+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-infrastructure", "ai-policy", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Kathy Hochul", "Marjorie Taylor Greene", "Tucker Carlson", "Joseph Hoefer", "Caleb Max", "Humans First", "New York", "Silicon Valley"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/and-now-maga-and-mtg-even-have-joined-the-anti-data-center-movement", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/and-now-maga-and-mtg-even-have-joined-the-anti-data-center-movement.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/and-now-maga-and-mtg-even-have-joined-the-anti-data-center-movement.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/and-now-maga-and-mtg-even-have-joined-the-anti-data-center-movement.jsonld"}}