BS BULLETIN:
- Progressive organizations involved in anti-fossil-fuel, anti-ICE and “No Kings” activism are now pouring resources into campaigns against data-center construction.
- Energy experts say the movement follows a familiar playbook: national money and identical messaging presented as spontaneous local opposition.
- The concerns are not entirely manufactured—polling shows 70% of Americans oppose data centers in their communities amid worries over electric bills, water consumption and land use.
America’s rapidly growing data-center industry has become the latest target of a national progressive organizing network that experts say previously mobilized against pipelines, fossil fuels and immigration enforcement.
“It’s a playbook we’ve seen before,” Power the Future communications director Larry Behrens told Fox News Digital.
Behrens said supposedly local campaigns frequently emerge with identical signs, talking points, legal arguments and organizational support.
“This seemingly grassroots organization pops up, but yet they’re all wearing the same T-shirts,” he said. “They’re all singing the same playbook and they’re only carrying the same signs.”
Several organizations supporting data-center opposition have received funding from major progressive networks.
Public Citizen, a founding member of the Texas Data Center Rebellion, lists George Soros’ Open Society Foundations among the organizations whose financial support makes its work possible.
The Sierra Club received $3.6 million from Arabella Advisors’ Sixteen Thirty Fund between 2014 and 2022, according to Fox News.
CodePink, which has also opposed data-center projects, received funding connected to socialist megadonor Neville Roy Singham. Singham has faced scrutiny over his ties to organizations sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party.
In Texas, Public Citizen, the Sierra Club and the Party for Socialism and Liberation have participated in the growing opposition.
Public Citizen helped organize a two-day Texas Data Center Rebellion gathering in San Antonio, while the Sierra Club’s Austin chapter, the Party for Socialism and Liberation and Save Our Springs Alliance participated in a forum opposing a major development that included data centers.
Some of the same organizations have also participated in anti-ICE demonstrations and “No Kings” protests.
“What they do is they send their money through a maze of organizations, deliberately trying to mask what it is being used for,” Behrens said.
He acknowledged that some community concerns are legitimate but argued that repeated language and tactics across multiple states indicate a larger coordinated campaign.
Experts say opposition to fossil fuels is one of the movement’s principal motivations because massive data centers require enormous amounts of reliable electricity.
Data centers have also become a target for groups opposed to Big Tech, artificial intelligence, immigration enforcement and government surveillance.
Astra Taylor, a Democratic Socialists of America member and Occupy Wall Street veteran, called opposition to data centers “one of the biggest political opportunities” she had ever seen during a June DSA event.
Taylor described the facilities as physical locations where activists can organize against what she called the “billionaire agenda.”
DSA chapters in Seattle, Washington, Arizona and New York have backed moratoriums, government control of electrical infrastructure or campaigns against individual data-center projects.
The resistance, however, is not limited to the political left.
Farmers, ranchers and other residents in conservative communities have raised concerns about rising utility rates, water consumption, shrinking farmland and tax incentives awarded to wealthy technology companies.
Fox News polling found that 70% of Americans oppose having data centers built in their communities. Nearly eight in 10 said construction should proceed more slowly to address environmental and local concerns.
Sixteen Thirty Fund defended its support for the Sierra Club and rejected claims that opposition is inherently anti-American.
“Across the country, people have legitimate questions about how these projects could affect their communities,” a spokesperson told Fox News. “Corporate interests should focus on addressing the potential impacts of data center development rather than attacking those who speak out.”
President Donald Trump has defended data centers as essential to American economic growth and the competition with China over artificial intelligence.
He has also backed a “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” intended to require data-center developers to finance the new power generation and infrastructure their facilities need rather than passing those expenses to residents.
MY QUICK TAKE
When the same activists arrive in different towns wearing matching shirts, carrying matching signs and reading matching talking points, the “spontaneous grassroots uprising” may need a better costume department.
But here is where the industry had better be careful: Not every homeowner worried about a soaring electric bill is a socialist operative. People have every right to ask who pays for the power plant, where the water comes from and why a trillion-dollar technology company needs a tax break.
America cannot surrender the AI race to China because the professional protest class found a new building to picket. But “national security” should not become a magic phrase that sticks ordinary families with Big Tech’s electric bill.
Build the data centers. Build the power to support them. And make the companies cashing the checks pay for both.
DBS WIRE SOURCES:
- Fox News — Inside the far left’s growing anti-data-center campaign
- City Journal — Inside the rise of the anti-data-center movement
- Breitbart — Sen. Ron Johnson warns Chinese propaganda may be fueling data-center opposition
- New York Post — Trump defends data centers as public opposition grows
- New York Post — China accused of fueling anti-data-center sentiment
