Sorting Through The Verbiage

Hunt: So, who’s right on data centers? President Trump or Governor Shapiro?

Fetterman: Oh, the president is actually right overall. I mean, you know, uh, we we used to be moving forward on data centers and now, I mean, he's actually scared by the polls. So I mean, what really… pic.twitter.com/c1SCnPDEdu

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 2, 2026

Hunt: So, who’s right on data centers? President Trump or Governor Shapiro?

Fetterman: Oh, the president is actually right overall. I mean, you know, uh, we we used to be moving forward on data centers and now, I mean, he's actually scared by the polls. So I mean, what really what's really motivated by more than just the polls overall, you know, I set out I set up my message on it on data centers just a couple days on X where I'm saying it's, you know, the president happens to be right in this. You know, I think it's it's very necessary that we win the war on AI. Uh, we, I think it's necessary because AI is going to transform our world. And, you know, it can be either us be the leaders or it can be the Chinese. And we could we could live under those rules and they're going to build unlimited data centers. And they're not really, uh, really stopped by with the kind of like democracy and the kinds of rules that, that we have overall, I think it's important. And I would remind people, like a lot of the opposition is, is been driven by the ccp and a lot of a lot of influence. So I think now withwith data centers, uh, also there's the facts now that it, it consumes a very, very, maybe one tenth of 1%, you know, compared to almonds and compared to other other things, part of our economy and also our land usage as well, too. Pennsylvania, you know, we are energy rich, we are water rich. And we have we're land rich now. So I think it's an important part of our economy, not just for Pennsylvania's but also the country right now.

He’s limiting himself to Pennsylvania, but Trump doesn’t. So…

AI is not a force of nature which must transform our w. It’s not even clear it w. And frankly, the correct response to data centers is regulation, not “You must obey or China wins!” Nothing is that simple a dichotomy.

Blaming opposition on CCP propaganda is insulting and an assault on democratic processes in this country. Real people have real concerns about the real impact of these centers on their lives and their quality of life. As AOC and others have pointed out, if Trump likes them so, build one next to MAL. Or donate some of MAL property, to lead by example.

Yeah, that’ll happen. 

And PA may have a lot of water to spare, and electricity, but most of the country west of the Mississippi, doesn’t. Including Texas, which has more water than most of the states west of it, but none to spare for AI. Which so far is just producing child porn and pictures nobody needs, and junk summations for Google searches. Oh, and there was that AI that broke out of its limitations and hacked other databases to solve the problems it was told to solve. AI doesn’t know what’s wrong with that, or with creating pictures of naked children. If that’s how it’s going to transform the world, I don’t think we need help in those areas. 

It’s funny how the worst scenario for AI in all the stories was how it would try to kill us all, maliciously. But so far, it’s the worst aspects of the internet, cubed. Or maybe raised to the 10th power. Choose your metaphor.

I’m not an AI. Luddite. But neither am I willing to give the tech bros the authority to do as they please and rake in the money they expect for it. “Trust me, bro,” went out with Elmo and DOGE, if not when Elmo took over Twitter.

If all you’ve got to say as a U.S. Senator is “Let the tech bros run free, they’ll save us from China,” I’ve gotta say the last technological race with a foreign power was the Space Race, and private enterprise didn’t win that one. Government agencies and government contractors did. Government gave us the internet, too; and GPS. And it’s done a damned fine job regulating food and drugs for 100 years; well, until Trump got re-elected. “Let free enterprise be” is not at all the argument Fetterman and Trump think it is. Maybe that’s why 70% of the country is against data centers, and almost the same percentage is fed up with Trump.

Power to the people.