Yeah don't hold your breath.

The heavy anti-datacenter campaigning was primarily aimed at scaring votes out of old people and other low-information voters, and was largely successful. With that mission accomplished it's back to business as usual.

I personally observed old ladies gossiping at the polls. A lot of them don't even know what data centers are, just that they are bad and will steal their electricity and make their arthritis worse.

All politicians regardless of party are bought and paid for.

Literally every instance I've seen where the angry townspeople fought against a data center, the town council unanimously ruled against them without a vote, like the kangaroo court in The Godfather Part 2.

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zero_shift an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Then those who believe specific datacenters need to be built should provide better arguments.

If anything the pro-build people should be for regulation so that citizens can know a local buildout means no power outages, water shortages etc. - preventing communities from rejecting DCs for purely defensive reasons.

It's clear the AI companies have not managed the message here, they have fumbled the politics. This is a deserved loss on their part.

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potamic 27 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I don't think the debate is so much about whether to build data centers as much about where to build them. In an ideal setting, the government identifies land suitable for industrial purpose, carves out dedicated zones, provisioned with necessary power and utilities, where industries can go and setup without intruding into somebody's status quo. The data center buildout at this time is happening at such a pace that they've has exhausted most of the existing zoned options, and unwilling to wait for new zones to be planned, are going out purchasing ad-hoc pieces of land and covertly having them rezoned for industrial purposes. This might sometimes might mean industries popping up behind somebody's residence or in an already resource constrained area. If you look deep, it's actually a fight between those who want to bypass urban planning in the interest of speeding up industrial development versus those who insist it is necessary.

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lakeviewterrace an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You're expecting a nuanced debate from an electorate that has had this distilled into a purely Boolean issue: bad or good

	▲	sam_lowry_ 38 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		US needs its own Narodniks, cf.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodniks

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nikanj 41 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

The position of a pro-build democrat is untenable, when their running mates have successfully painted datacenters as dark portals to the ninth level of hell

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piokoch an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I think you are oversimplifying the situation. The problem were not data centers per se, but Mr. Paxton, who, except being a rather horrible person (his own party tried to get rid of him) was taking money from lobbyists and then was trying to push their agenda without taking into account any concerns.

	▲	lakeviewterrace an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I should clarify: I'm not talking about Texas; this trope was used across the country this election cycle, even at the most local of local elections. Dog-catcher candidates were taking disingenuous anti-datacenter stances if they thought it could get them votes.