Politics
Trump Tells Ohio The Giant Windowless Building Is Actually For All Of You
By Mor Michael, . BSN Network. Satire.
VANDALIA, Ohio, President Trump held a campaign rally here Saturday on behalf of Ohio's Senate Republican candidate, and used the occasion to make an impassioned case for data centers, the large, loud, electricity-hungry warehouse facilities that have recently attracted scrutiny from local governments, environmental groups, and anyone who has ever received a utility bill.
The speech was framed as an economic argument. Trump told the crowd that without more data centers, the United States would fall behind China in artificial intelligence, which he described as the most important race of our time, slightly ahead of the Senate race he had technically come to Ohio to discuss.
"There's so much money to be made for Ohio," Trump told attendees, several of whom had taken the day off work. He did not specify which Ohioans the money was for, at what point it would arrive, or whether any of it would pass through a county that currently has a functioning grocery store.
The data center industry has faced growing resistance in Ohio and elsewhere, with residents raising concerns about groundwater use, noise levels, property values, and the fact that the facilities employ roughly forty people to manage a building the size of a regional airport. Trump addressed these concerns by noting that China is building a lot of them.
Former Ohio state Senator Bernie Moreno, the Republican candidate the rally was ostensibly held to support, stood on stage and nodded at appropriate intervals. His opponent, Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown, has not yet been forced to publicly declare his position on server cooling infrastructure, but the week is young.
Elon Musk, whose own AI company operates data centers and who has donated substantially to Trump-aligned political efforts, was not at the rally. His absence was not explained. The connection between his business interests and the president's sudden evangelical commitment to warehouse computing was also not explained, possibly because the explanation would have taken longer than the rally.
A woman named Deborah, attending with her husband from outside Dayton, said she had come because she supports Trump and wanted to hear about jobs. "I didn't totally follow the data center part," she said, "but he seemed like he really believed it, so."
Trump closed the data center portion of the speech by warning that if America does not act, China will own artificial intelligence, and then they will own everything else, and then it will be very bad. He did not define "own" in this context. He then pivoted to tariffs.
Vandalia has a population of approximately fifteen thousand people. The nearest operational hyperscale data center is forty miles away. It employs forty-three people and draws enough electricity to power a small city, which in Ohio means it has a complicated relationship with several small cities.
The rally was declared a success.
The story we are making fun of: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6127929-trump-defends-ohio-data-centers/