The left and right agree on one thing: no data centers | Decoder

Our guest today is Gaby Del Valle, a policy reporter here at The Verge, and we’re discussing the growing backlash against AI data centers. Gaby recently reported a fantastic piece about Hernando County, Florida, where last month the county commission unanimously approved a year-long moratorium on data center construction. So I wanted Gaby to talk me through what these protests look like on the ground, from voters whose party affiliations have typically aligned them with big business.

0:00 – Cold open
0:51 – Intro & episode setup
1:28 – Interview begins
3:10 – Left-right lines don't map neatly
6:41 – AI's "marketing problem" and the Netflix analogy
7:01 – Data centers, ICE, and surveillance
9:38 – Why some protests go national
16:44 – Florida politics and Byron Donalds
21:19 – NIMBYism: the one thing people can stop
21:56 – The "Jeep Wrangler" jobs nostalgia theory
26:55 – Local politics vs. national culture war
30:21 – DeSantis primary as a midterm bellwether
31:46 – Closing thoughts

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