This exchange with a flippant, unserious Matt Yglesias and Medhi Hasan crystallizes the issue with centrism:
You can watch the video, but the gist of it is that immigration is not a good issue for Democrats, per Yglesias, so Democrats shouldn’t talk about it. And that’s even if ICE is killing people in the streets. “You have to win first,” says Yglesias.
This is the road to political stasis, the do-nothing centrist model of tiny incrementalism and fear-based cowering from simple, clear messaging. The notion that any voters will be excited about voting for a political party that won’t say “boo” about ICE murders in the streets of Minneapolis is a form of political idiocy that is almost breathtaking.
Let’s pick another issue, AI data centers, which are incredibly unpopular, and see what Yglesias says about that:
[…] I think a lot of the current panic about data centers is factually wrong or grounded in bad analysis. But it’s not as if a state banning new data centers is going to lead to some disastrous outcome — you’re just literally keeping things the same. So I think it’s very hard for any elected official not to just listen to his constituents on this and find a way to press pause on new approvals. Substantively, though, I think the right thing to do is to try to make sure that it’s genuinely a pause — an opportunity for everyone to catch their breath, do a reset around tax abatements and utility rate structures, and find a way to get to yes.
Personally, I am writing this from a relatively upscale, scenic town in coastal Maine and it seems to me that I would welcome a new data center in this community. The town is on a peninsula and the homes are mostly either on the coast, right on the inland side of the main road, or else in one specific village cluster. There’s a big interior part of the peninsula that’s not as scenic as the coastal part and it’s largely empty. If you put a data center in there, nobody would notice. But with the extra tax revenue maybe you could pave Old County Road, which is currently dirt. Maybe you could fix up the badly weathered basketball courts at the town’s school. I would enjoy a property tax cut.
I want to contrast this tone-deaf take with what people in rural Texas really think about data centers:
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, half a dozen people gathered in a conference room in Corsicana, an hour southeast of Dallas, in dusty boots and business suits. They came armed with binders and printed dossiers, meticulously laying out their investigations into the data centers that are popping up across their communities. They’d documented persistent noise pollution, diminished air quality, spiking electricity bills and ignored pleas for help from the state.
These diehard Republicans were meeting with Hinojosa, they said, because they didn’t know where else to turn. Over the course of an hour, she didn’t ask for their vote. Instead, she gave them what every voice in the wilderness really wants — undivided attention.
“Talk to me like a dummy,” she said, as she put on her glasses to review their findings. “I can tell you’re in deep, and I’m sorry you had to get so educated on this.”
When Hinojosa, an Austin state representative, signed on to face three-term incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott, it seemed like a suicide mission. A fundraising juggernaut, Abbott began the year with over $100 million in his campaign account and a record of smashing his Democratic opponents by double digits.
But few expected the data center curveball, least of all Abbott, who vowed last year that Texas would become the “epicenter of AI development.” In the face of rural rage, Abbott backtracked, temporarily pausing new projects and recommending the Legislature enshrine what he says are the toughest guardrails in the country on water and power usage. That has put him at odds with President Donald Trump, who said communities that reject data centers will end up “backwards and poor.”
At Hinojosa’s roundtable discussion in Corsicana, the attendees said they still blamed Abbott for what they described as violent incursions on their tranquil way of life.
“But didn’t he fix it?” Hinojosa asked with a cheeky smile.
“Greg Abbott has enticed them,” Michael Ellis said with vitriol, referring to data center developers.“He didn’t fix anything.”
That whole piece is worth a read, because it profiles Democrats who are fighting in Republican districts and finding that the data center issue is one where they can get Republicans to consider voting for them because their Republican electeds have ignored their valid concerns about data centers in their backyards.
Yglesias wants Democrats to win, but he doesn’t understand that winning requires fight and fight requires empathy. Unless you can understand why voters are upset about something — unless you empathize with them — you’re probably going to think that an issue like data centers is no big deal since you’ll never experience the major environmental impact of having one near you. Since you can’t empathize, you’re going to label a legitimate concern as a “panic”. Then you’re going to collect money from your AI and crypto paymasters, so you can summer in Maine and push the “centrist” line that advocates doing whatever the rich donors want.
