Tag: data centers

The State of Trump

These declarations sum up the state of the union and Trump right now:

Trump praises “cash cow” data centers as his neighbors reject major project

While US towns, citizens, and states are more and more frequently challenging the need for AI centers, Trump is gung-ho to get them built. Many variables are being rolled out against building them:

  • Are they actually needed and will they be profitable?
  • Impact on the dwindling water supply
  • The heat data and AI centers are shown to displace
  • Energy use and costs

Many Trump supporters think Trump is a ‘smart businessman’. The rest of us count Trump’s many bankruptcies, the continual grifting, and his mismanagement of war with Iran, the economy, trade deals, tariffs, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and respond, not so fast.

Harry Enten explains why Trump’s signature issue just turned into a polling nightmare

Donald Trump is currently plummeting in the polls on his signature issue of immigration, noted CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten on Tuesday.

It was “one of the pillars of Donald Trump’s first campaign back in 2016, winning that Republican primary,” noted Enten, who also pointed to Trump’s anti-immigration agenda enjoying 53% backing when he won his second term in 2024.

But now there’s been “a massive change in the court of public opinion,” he said.

“Now, 58% of Americans say no, they do not, in fact, trust Trump on immigration. Just 41% say yes. So what we’re seeing with ICE is finding its way to the Trump administration at large, to Trump at large.”

ICE keeps killing people, using under claims for public safety or ‘fear for their own lives’. But the video evidence and witnesses’ recounting completely contradicts those narratives. Meanwhile, more FAFO stories show up about Trump’s ICE forces grabbing people trying to complete their citizenship requirements and wholly, totally legally here.

More of We the People are saying, “Enough.”

Americans Know Trump Is Lying

No amount of media sanewashing can convince Americans that Donald Trump is rationally prosecuting the Iran war or accurately relating the terms of a (sort of) deal. No matter how many times Trump repeats his outlandish lies on matters big or small — e.g., vandals at the reflecting pool! She begged me for a photo! — or tosses out bacchanalian distractions, or seeks refuge in hapless propaganda (none creepier than Vice President JD Vance’s pro-Nixon spin), he cannot arrest a growing national consensus: whatever Trump is doing is a failure and whatever he says is a bald-faced lie.

Trump’s inability to snow over the public with his blizzard of deceit bodes well for Democrats’ chances to trounce Republicans in the midterms. Candid after his primary defeat, Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn let on: “The jury’s still out whether this MAGA populist movement can survive the midterms.” But widespread agreement that Trump is an inveterate liar offers the opportunity for something beyond a midterm victory, which would be nothing less than a reality reset.

In the late stages of any authoritarian crack, the degenerating despot’s spin, lies, and excuses eventually reach a point of diminishing returns. Each additional fabrication only reinforces exasperation with his galling mendacity. That, in turn, may whet the public’s appetite for some unvarnished truth-telling and public accountability.

Jen Rubin wrote this, and she is absolutely right.

Trump keeps rolling out new distractions. He’s doing everything he can to turn We the People’s attention away from his increasing lists of lies, failures, and broken promises.

His latest Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! effort is for money to fight communism in the United States. But all of it is secret. Trump runs an opaque administration. Whenever documentation and proof is demanded, he blusters and folds.

The ‘war on communism’ is his latest desperate attempt to stoke fear, sow divisions, and stay in power.

Johnson Says Pentagon Needs More Money for ‘Fighting Communism on Our Own Shores’

As he pushed for Congress to approve $350 billion in new spending requested by the Pentagon, House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested Tuesday that some of the funds were needed for “fighting communism on our own shores,” an ominous notion in light of President Donald Trump’s threats to deploy the US military against his domestic enemies.

In addition to the already record-breaking $1.1 trillion military spending bill that was approved last month by the House Appropriations Committee, the Pentagon has requested a separate $350 billion package to be passed through a separate GOP-led spending bill known as “Reconciliation 3.0,” which can pass without Democratic support.

Sure. They’re fighting ‘communism’. Some of We the People will hear the word and shrivel up in fear. But most of us know this dance and will not be fooled again. As Jen Rubin wrote, we know Trump is lying. So is Johnson.

Next, we have this piece by Paul Krugman.

The Humbling of the Once Almighty Dollar

Donald Trump’s stunning failure in Iran has weakened America on many fronts. The world now perceives us as neither a reliable ally nor an invincible enemy, with an extortionately expensive military that is losing its best and brightest to Pete Hegseth’s prejudice and incompetence. We are now four months into a war that was supposed to last a couple of weeks.There is no end in sight as strikes and counter-strikes continue despite Trump’s farcical proclamations of American victory and Iranian surrender. Sixteen months into his presidency, Trump has squandered all of America’s credibility with the rest of the world.

So let me add one more item to the tally of destruction: The supremacy of the dollar, the pre-eminent tool in America’s toolbox of global financial power, has been seriously damaged by the rise of alternative payment systems – a rise that was greatly hastened by the Iran war.

Paul Krugman summarizes how the United States and the USD are losing ground in international affairs. Instead of increasing respect for the United States, Trump has managed to reveal that, with him in charge, the US is now an unreliable ally and trade partner. Trump thumbs his nose at international law, sneers at history, and makes boasts and claims that he can’t back up.

Like We the People, the world is reaching the point that they’ve had enough.

Here is the capstone of the current trend:

Trump’s 37% approval problem just got harder to ignore

Trump’s approval rating is more than a single bad headline. At 37%, the president is sitting in territory that usually signals a broad coalition of dissatisfaction, not just predictable opposition from the other party.

Yes, it’s more than bad headlines, distractions, an unneeded war, and constant lies. Those are all symptoms.

The truth is that a person who should not be in charge of this nation won an election. Since his election, he’s done grave damage to our nation’s system of government and has grown as a threat to not just We the People, but to democracy itself.

Trump knows this. As much as he tries to spin matters, as much as his staff hides the truth, the cracks are showing.

Trump is failing. He and his policies need to be reined in before it’s too late.

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The Trump Dichotomy

We’re at a fascinating — and disappointing — crossroads in the US. The Trump administration is advocating more funding for defense, security, and detention centers. They’re doing this while the national debt grows.

Inflation is eating into people’s discretionary spending. Yet Trump is deliberately shrinking the safety net. Under MAHA, they’re actively working against people being healthy by cutting oversight and campaigning against vaccines while cutting the EPA air and water regulations which kept our air and water safe.

As inflation increases and the number of people on Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security rises, the Trump administration says, “Work harder! Work more!”

Meanwhile, Trump’s administration pushes for more AI.

As with robotics in manufacturing, AI and General AI are often touted as a way to reduce personnel costs in help centers and bureaucracies through employing less people.

Conversely, AI and data centers have an adverse effect on the environment and increases the price of water and energy and hit local economies. That will again squeeze the poor. Spending more on water and energy, they’ll have less for food and anything else.

So, the Trump administration is driving us toward being poorer, with fewer work and employment opportunities, with higher food, energy, and water costs.

That setup benefits the hyperwealthy. People like Trump. Musk. And most of Trump’s administration. They’re not affected by inflation.

In parallel to this, Trump is hyping stocks and then buying them. Once articles about that came out, don’t you think that his administration and faithful followers are doing the same, if they have the money to?

“Oh, look, Trump just visited Thermo Fisher and hyped it. Buy, buy, buy!”

As the days of Trump’s war continue adding up, the war is heating up again. Iran struck; now Trump vows he’ll strike back ‘very hard’. That’s the person who declared himself ‘the peace president’.

The dichotomy between what Trump says he wants and what he does has never been greater. He’s making himself and his cronies wealthier and bankrupting the rest of us.

This is Trump’s vision of make America great again. The irony, first noted back in 2016 and apparent ever since, is how negatively Trump’s policies hit his staunchest MAGA supporters. Yet, they cheer his moves. It’s a dichotomy rooted in perversity and emotions that I’ll never grasp. Nor will they.

How does the $1,00,000,000 Epstein bunker-ballroom help MAGA? Does it cut inflation?

How ’bout that mega arch that Trump plans to build? How does that alleviate the water problems, the drought, the rising food and healthcare prices that Americans are enduring?

Is the Iran war making MAGA safer? Trump is convincing them that it is.

Likewise, Trump convinced MAGA that tariffs are good for them, but the opposite impact has been seen.

Just as Trump has convinced them that cutting health and environmental rules and regulations will make it ‘easier to do business in America’ — while making it harder for anyone to enter the United States to do business with his oppressive ICE and Homeland Security tactics.

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but Trump can fool MAGA all of the time.

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The Trends

Interesting trends are taking over the United States.

Manufacturing and production plants are shutting down or gone. It varies by region and industry.

The United States had about 25,000 malls in the 1980s. We’re down to about 1200. Many rural malls have shut down. Stores like Aldi and Dollar General or Dollar Store have replaced them. Some are being successfully repurposed by turning stores into churches. Some areas turn to casinos to counter the loss of malls and manufacturing.

Rural movie theaters are closing, as are rural hospitals, which is creating healthcare deserts.

These are anchor industries. As plants, malls, movie theaters, and hospitals close, jobs are lost, along with local revenue streams. Income drops; spending drops. Local restaurants and service industries suffer. That ripples into the local area’s ability to maintain public buildings, schools, and infrastructure. As these effects are felt, more people move away. People lack incentives to move there. The population shrinks.

With fewer students, rural public schools close. Small community colleges and universities feel it as enrollment drops. Falling enrollments force them to cut programs and raise tuition to fill the gaps, but factors have changed, and the loop of falling tuition and less classes grow.

Railroads, which used to be a rural lifeline, have cut way back in the United States. Small-town passenger train service is mostly gone.

Meanwhile, Data and AI Centers are being built fast. They’re being built in rural areas where there used to be mining or manufacturing. While they’ll provide temporary economic stabilization and add some revenue from construction, these places don’t typically employ many people. Automation takes care of many service needs. Such centers also don’t produce products that can be taken to a store and sold.

I was thinking about all of this because those kinds of economic and service declines in rural areas were a meaningful part of the political environment that helped Donald Trump gain support. He frames his attacks on ‘narco-terrorists’ as a war on crime and drugs. The war in Iran is part of his America First agenda. They build on the same themes of strength, distrust of elites, and national priority that resonated politically in earlier elections.

All those rural trends have been causing a youth drain. Educated young citizens are moving out of rural areas. Those left behind tend to be older and less educated and are more likely to be Trump supporters. For me, then, what Trump is now doing will do little to ameliorate the polarization affecting United States politics.

Long-term rural revitalization isn’t just about economics or infrastructure. It’s deeply tied to political will, governance, and coalition-building. Without bipartisan or broadly supported political action, even the best economic initiatives struggle to take hold.

Trump’s style, though, is exactly the opposite; he goes it alone instead of building coalitions, demonizing political opponents. At the end of the term, we’re likely to see many of the same problems affecting rural areas that we now see. The polarization will remain, but there will be less voters in the rural areas to support people like Trump.

They may have won some short-term victories by putting Trump in office, but the problems remain.

A war in Iran does nothing to help.

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