Backwards And Poor

Contra the Plan Trusters who still think Trump has a grand strategic plan in the Middle East, that we are winning the war against Iran, 18 dead American service members is “small potatoes” and that while much higher food and gas prices under Biden were a YUUUGE DEAL but complaining about the same thing under Trump is just whining from losers….I have to say that a billionaire dismissing concerns about data centers from the very people that voted him into office twice isn’t a great look….

Oh that must be it, the only reason you wouldn’t want an enormous data center that uses up a ton of electricity and water being built on what was once productive farm ground is because you just want to be backwards and poor. Very perceptive from a guy who really has bothered to take the time to find out why people are opposed to these monstrosities.

The data center issue is front and center as we approach what looks to be a bloodbath for the GOP in the midterm elections*. Trump is warning that if voters don’t show up to keep the Republicans in charge of Congress that he will be impeached but he doesn’t seem all that concerned with actually making a real case.

It is going to be a problem in neighboring Ohio where Vivek Ramaswamy is (deservedly) in a lot of trouble in his quest to replace Mike DeWine as Governor and former Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown is looking like a real threat to get back into the Senate if he can defeat incumbent Jon Husted.

In 2024 Trump won Ohio 55%-44%, a better result than his prior win in 2016 (he also won the state in 2020). Ohio wasn’t really terribly competitive but now it is very possible that the Buckeye state is going to replace their Governor and one Senator with Democrats, and data centers are a big issue driving that.

All well and good but the question no one seems to ask is this:

Do we need all of these data centers?

What exactly are they doing, what is the purpose of these data centers?

Trump and many others claim they are the economic drivers of the future and that the data center race against China apparently is the equivalent of the space race against the Soviets. I wondered if that was true so I asked Grok to show me a ranking of the top 10 nations by number of data centers and the output was….interesting….

Admittedly this doesn’t differentiate between the scope and scale of one data center versus another, and maybe the numbers out of China aren’t complete or accurate but it sure looks like we already have a YUGE advantage in data centers over China, who trails not just the U.S. by an enormous margin but also Germany and the U.K.. Hell even Canada is not far behind them, and Canada has huge tracts of land that are not only empty and undeveloped but useless for agriculture….

Anyway, a more than 12 to 1 advantage in data center makes building infinity more data centers less urgent to be sure. That doesn’t stop shills from across the spectrum from lining up for bags of money to push the “if we don’t build infinity data centers we will lose to the godless Commies in China” party line.

Now we are being told that data centers will reduce your electric bill or even as is being promised in West Virginia, lead to the elimination of the state income tax. It is the latest pie-in-the-sky promise we have heard over and over and over again.

When the Ohio Turnpike was built, as my dearly departed mum endlessly groused, it was supposed to be a toll road only until the original construction was completed. Meanwhile you still pay to use it. The various state lotteries were going to be a windfall that would fund the schools (the ol’ “Won’t someone think of the children” shtick). Last I checked I still pay property taxes to fund the local public schools I never used. Legal marijuana is supposed to bring in enormous tax revenue that will be used to fix the roads. I drive a lot in Michigan and let me say those people need to smoke a lot more dope because their roads still suck. They also have the world’s largest collection of asinine billboards advertising pot shops.

Perhaps I am wrong but it seems to me that no one has really made a compelling case for infinity data centers, much less these enormous hyperscale data centers. It more feels like a giant self-fulfilling prophecy, we need more data centers because we need more data centers, and billions are spent on constructing these things we probably don’t need, they are using enormous amounts of land, electricity and water and apparently can ignore the rules about things like wetlands.

I thought we were going to get manufacturing coming back to America but instead we just get data centers no one wants and no one can seem to explain why we need other than “Just because”. Without asking anyone, Trump and company have bet the economic future of America on data centers.

_{*Yes, all elections are fake and gay.}