Republicans are continuing their uninterrupted streak of woefully underperforming in elections. However, in the first of its kind referendum on Big Tech data centers, voters are showing that a party that embraces land sovereignty over Big Tech dystopian land grabs will win the day.

Sadly, Republicans have chosen to be on the losing side of the issue.

The public is being asked to shoulder a burden to facilitate a supposed technology whose benefits are very unclear and dubious.

In a first of its kind local referendum, voters in Port Washington, Wisconsin, voted by a margin of 2-1 for a referendum that will require all future data center projects in the area to be approved by a vote of the city’s residents.

The referendum was sparked in the wake of Oracle and OpenAI’s Stargate facility setting up shop in the area. The proposed 1.3 gigawatt facility will consume the power equivalent of over one million households.

The referendum does not undo the Stargate project but will prevent any future project worth more than $10 million from getting approval without the public input.

Over 1,000 residents signed the petition that put this measure on the ballot. “We are not against development,” added Michael Baester, founding member of Great Lakes Neighbors United, which spearheaded this campaign. “We are for development that the community understands, supports, and has chosen together. Tonight proves that when citizens organize and engage, their voices can be heard.”

What is so important nationally about this vote is that Port Washington was carried by Trump 52-48 in 2024. It is the quintessential swing city that sways the Wisconsin vote, and by proxy, the entire country’s electorate.

Such an emphatic result from a swing town demonstrates the potency of the data center issue.

According to Politico, other communities around the country are set to vote on similar ballot measures.

Imagine if Republicans could get on the right side of the data center issue. What might that do for their failing election efforts?

In Festus, Missouri, a solid conservative jurisdiction, voters ousted four GOP councilmen who recently approved rezoning for a $6 billion data center. Two of them were defeated by margins greater than 2-1.

Thus the grassroots opposition to data centers is just as virulent in red America as it is in swing areas that have already soured on Trump because of the economy.

Oklahoma is a state where Trump carried every county, yet voters there are firmly opposed to data centers.

After Google tried to bribe the locals in Osage County to support a hyperscale data center, the Rock Volunteer Fire Department turned down a $250,000 donation from the company. This is a county Trump won by 41 points.

The opposition is just as stiff in the cities. Last month, the Tulsa City Council voted unanimously to halt construction of new data centers for nine months. All 19 speakers at the meeting voiced support for the moratorium.

Across the state in Oklahoma City, the city council recently voted to rezone over 800 acres of farmland for a Google data center. The council is now facing a recall petition.

Portage County, Ohio, is a prototypical rust belt, blue-collar county that traditionally voted Democrat but migrated to the GOP under Trump. The president carried the county by 15 points in 2024. Last week, the Ravenna City Council moved forward with a 12-month moratorium on the centers after a crowd filled the city council chambers to speak against the proposed projects.

In many respects, the ubiquitous opposition to data centers is a reflection of the sheer pervasiveness and magnitude of these projects, targeting nearly every county in states like Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia, and Arizona and numerous places in the majority of other states.

According to the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, the grid operator in most of the Midwest, by 2030, the proposed hyperscale data centers in Indiana will use an amount of electricity equivalent to twice that used by the entire state.

None of this makes any sense nor is it sustainable, especially for a product that increasingly fails to produce a degree of profit that could come close to paying for all the capital expenditure and power.

This is why red-state RINOs like those in drought-stricken Texas continue to shower these companies with lavish sales tax breaks.

RELATED: Data centers are a hidden tax on your burger

lchumpitaz/Getty Images

We don’t offer 30-year abatements like this to any other industry, but this is what data centers require to remain solvent because their hardware depreciates so quickly. According to the state comptroller, Lone Star voters will subsidize $3.2 billion in tax breaks to the largest companies on the planet over the next two years.

Four of the largest states targeted for data centers — Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, and Georgia — are languishing through a severe and sustained drought.

Industry apologists are trying to gaslight people into believing that their closed-loop systems will somehow not affect the water flow, but it’s inconceivable that it won’t have a short-term effect and also pose health concerns when recycled back into the water table.

An application from Amazon to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management indicates that the sanitary system it is constructing for two of its hyperscales in New Carlisle is designed to use more than 1.6 million gallons per day on hot summer days.

This is “only” the equivalent water use of about 5,000 households, which pales in comparison to some other facilities and to the magnitude of the power use. Keep in mind that the entire population of this town is just under 1,900.

There’s a reason why 65% of voters oppose all data center construction, including a clear majority of all demographics, ideological groups, and income levels, despite all of the lobbying and electioneering by Big Tech.

The public is being asked to shoulder a burden to facilitate a supposed technology whose benefits are very unclear and dubious.

Republicans can continue ignoring this grassroots revolt, but they will do so at their own peril. Nothing motivates voters more than the preservation of their own communities. That is one thing that still unites a divided America.

​Big tech, Data centers, Land grabs, Midwest, Oklahoma, Oklahoma city, Openai, Oracle, Red america, Republicans, Rust belt, Trump, Arizona, Texas, Opinion & analysis 

The DoorDash delivery app is getting some backlash from those angry about a publicity stunt it had with President Donald Trump at the White House Monday.

The president smiled for the cameras after receiving a package from McDonald’s delivered by a DoorDash worker. He tipped her $100, and she praised his “no taxes on tips” policy for saving her money.

‘Today, I deleted their app. There are other delivery services that don’t pander to a pedophile. F**k DoorDash.’

Almost immediately, liberals and other anti-Trump critics lambasted the company over the promotion.

“I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve spent a good deal of money using door dash. This lame s**t you pulled with trump made it super easy to delete my account. Get f**ked,” one user responded on the X platform.

“I’ve been ordering @DoorDash for years. Years and years. Today, I deleted their app. There are other delivery services that don’t pander to a pedophile. F**k DoorDash and that bulls**t PR scam with Trump,” replied a user identifying as a Canadian.

“Despite yall making it exceedingly difficult to delete accounts, got that s**t done. Absolutely F**k Trump, ICE, MAGA, and doordash,” one response reads.

“Just delete Doordash. F**k Trump,” another user said.

“Just cancelled my DashPass and hopefully many more do the same. I’m not funding Trumpie propaganda,” another detractor replied.

“You f**king clowns use the fake ass driver to f**king promote this f**king bulls**t for a f**king clown show pathetic f**king pathetic,” another critic said.

RELATED: Viral TikTok post leads to boycott of beloved SoCal taco shop chain — just because Latino CEO likes Trump

“Deleting ur app! Been a long term volume customer for years. Recommend you firing the marketing genius who’s gonna cost you millions of dollars for that performance at the White House! You have alienated millions of people,” said another.

“Deleted my app and will never use you again. Trump is a FASCIST, who is killing people and sending children to torture camps to be raped. I’ll be telling everyone I know to never use you again. I hope your company fails,” reads another message to the company.

Despite the outrage from many on the left, the company’s stock price had its best session in eight weeks after the White House promotion.

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​Doordash boycott trump, Doordash with trump, White house doordash, Liberals vs trump, Politics 

Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has revealed his plans for city-run grocery stores, a key promise he made to get into office.

Mamdani touted a similar experiment in 1936 by then-Mayor Fiero LaGuardia that provided city-run markets for New Yorkers in the throes of the Great Depression.

‘You know, it’s going to be more turmoil than anything else. It’s a great punch line for him and for the socialist movement. But New York is not a socialist city.’

“It cut overhead for pushcart vendors and lowered consumer cost,” Mamdani said during his 100 Days address on Sunday evening.

“LaGuardia said it was ‘an answer to those who said they had been forgotten,'” he added. “The New York Times described it succinctly, ‘City tries experiment.’ New York City, it is time for a grand experiment once again. Just like Laguardia used government to respond to challenges of the Great Depression, we will use government to respond to rising prices and unaffordable groceries.”

The effort will have a massive price tag.

Construction operations just at the first site are expected to run to $30 million.

Critics howled at the estimate, noting that it’s many times more what private industry spends to build a grocery store. And funding still needs to be approved by the city council.

Mamdani also said the stores would offer discounted prices on only certain staple items.

“The city will subsidize a core set of food staples,” the socialist mayor said. “A private operator will run the store but will answer to the standards the city will set. These standards include requirements that at our stores, bread will be cheaper. Eggs will be cheaper. Grocery shopping will no longer be an unsolvable equation. And workers will be treated with dignity.”

City Hall hopes to have the first city-run store running by 2027 and four others by 2029, the end of Mamdani’s term.

Critics are already lambasting the plan, including the spokesperson for a bodega group.

“These stores are going to get jam-packed. There are only four or five in the entire city of 8 million people,” said Fernando Mateo of the United Bodegas of America.

“What do you expect is going to happen? You’re going to have people rushing to these stores early in the morning to late at night, waiting on long lines,” he added. “You know, it’s going to be more turmoil than anything else. It’s a great punch line for him and for the socialist movement. But New York is not a socialist city.”

RELATED: Yet another big socialist promise from Mamdani skids and crashes into reality

Others noted that previous city-run grocery experiments ended with empty shelves and crime.

Mamdani spoke directly to the naysayers of his socialist plot.

“Some will insist that city-owned businesses do not work, that government cannot keep up with corporations,” he said. “My answer to them is simple. I look forward to the competition.”

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​Mamdani city run stores, Socialist nyc mayor, Bodega stores oppose mamdani, New york city socialism, Politics