It’s Donald Trump Versus MAGA on Data Centers

唐纳德·特朗普与“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）阵营在数据中心问题上的博弈

Molly McCann Sanders has a lot in common with many of the other women who helped Donald Trump win a second term as president. A pro-life Catholic who lives in Texas, she has staunchly conservative opinions on immigration and a fierce hatred of eminent domain—the practice of the government taking private property for public use.

莫莉·麦肯·桑德斯（Molly McCann Sanders）与许多帮助唐纳德·特朗普赢得第二个总统任期的女性有很多共同点。作为一名居住在德克萨斯州的“反堕胎”天主教徒，她在移民问题上持有坚定的保守派观点，并对“征用权”（即政府为公共用途征收私人财产的做法）深恶痛绝。

Sanders, the president of the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, which was started by Phyllis Schlafly, also describes herself as “a crunchy MAHA mom”—and says she’s been paying particular attention to data centers.

桑德斯是菲利斯·施拉夫利（Phyllis Schlafly）创立的“鹰论坛教育与法律辩护基金”（Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund）的主席，她还称自己是一位“崇尚自然的MAHA妈妈”（注：MAHA指“让美国再次健康”），并表示她一直密切关注数据中心问题。

“I’m alarmed by the idea that these data centers can move in and pollute,” she tells me. “I’m not a data center expert. I’m not a tech expert. But I’m suspicious and wary, and want to move slowly.”

“这些数据中心可以随意入驻并造成污染，这一想法让我感到担忧，”她告诉我。“我不是数据中心专家，也不是技术专家。但我对此持怀疑和警惕态度，我认为应该谨慎行事。”

She loves Trump, “but I think he’s wrong about data centers,” she says. And she sees the GOP’s effort to court what she calls “the laptop class”—young men who are enthusiastic about technology—at the Republican midterm convention earlier this month as a huge misstep with midterms nearing.

她热爱特朗普，“但我认为他在数据中心问题上错了，”她说。她认为共和党在本月初的中期选举大会上试图讨好她所称的“笔记本电脑阶层”（即对技术充满热情的年轻男性）的做法，在临近中期选举之际是一个巨大的失误。

McCann Sanders isn’t alone. More than 60 percent of Americans, including 47 percent of Republicans, say they are opposed to the construction of data centers in a poll released by The New York Times last week. In August, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent a private memo to AI companies sounding the alarm on how voters perceive data centers, warning that “campaign or party committees can not fix the toxic brand of an entire segment of the economy.” Last week, GOP strategist Tony Fabrizio issued a memo to the party’s candidates claiming that “unqualified support for building more AI data centers is a losing position.”

麦肯·桑德斯并不孤单。《纽约时报》上周发布的一项民意调查显示，超过60%的美国人（包括47%的共和党人）表示反对建设数据中心。今年8月，全国共和党参议院委员会向人工智能公司发送了一份内部备忘录，就选民对数据中心的看法敲响了警钟，警告称“竞选委员会或政党委员会无法修复整个经济领域所面临的负面品牌形象”。上周，共和党战略家托尼·法布里齐奥（Tony Fabrizio）向党内候选人发布备忘录，声称“无条件支持建设更多人工智能数据中心是一个会输掉选票的立场”。

But the GOP is facing one big hurdle: Trump himself. In recent weeks, facing mounting scrutiny on his policies and support for the industry, Trump has doubled down on his defense of both data centers and AI. In late August, he wrote in a Truth Social post that only communities that wanted to be “backwards and poor” would refuse data centers coming to town.

但共和党面临一个巨大的障碍：特朗普本人。最近几周，面对对其政策和行业支持力度的日益严格的审查，特朗普加倍捍卫数据中心和人工智能。8月下旬，他在“真实社交”（Truth Social）平台上发帖称，只有那些想要变得“落后和贫穷”的社区才会拒绝数据中心入驻。

Last week, he issued yet another series of posts boosting AI data centers. Users on his own Truth Social platform pushed back. An analysis from The New York Times of thousands of responses found that anti-data-center and anti-AI comments—including from staunch MAGA accounts—outnumbered positive comments by four to one.

上周，他又发布了一系列支持人工智能数据中心的帖子。但他自己的“真实社交”平台上的用户进行了反击。《纽约时报》对数千条回复的分析发现，反对数据中心和反对人工智能的评论（包括来自坚定的MAGA账号的评论）数量是正面评论的四倍。

Sanders says she sometimes “looks past” the wilder things Trump says, but she can’t fully overlook his pro-data-center rhetoric. “That is not the right way to go about this,” she says of the “backwards and poor” post. “We do have legitimate concerns. There are real problems.”

桑德斯表示，她有时会“忽略”特朗普那些更激进的言论，但她无法完全无视他支持数据中心的言论。“这不是处理这件事的正确方式，”她在谈到“落后和贫穷”的帖子时说。“我们确实有合理的担忧，存在真正的问题。”

My colleague Hugo Lowell, who covers the White House and writes our Inner Loop newsletter, says he’s not surprised by Trump’s attitude. “He’s bullish on AI,” he tells me. “He’s been told that restricting data center development means restricting compute, which means the US loses to China.”

我的同事雨果·洛厄尔（Hugo Lowell）负责报道白宫并撰写我们的《Inner Loop》通讯，他说他对特朗普的态度并不感到惊讶。“他看好人工智能，”他告诉我。“有人告诉他，限制数据中心的发展就意味着限制计算能力，这意味着美国会输给中国。”

The China competition angle is being publicly echoed by tech accelerationists and White House allies, including former White House AI czar David Sacks and investor and Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale. The latter debated Steve Bannon’s tech editor Joe Allen—whom I profiled last month—at an auxiliary event during the convention. That conversation between Lonsdale and Allen, Sanders says, was the only time she heard data centers brought up during the entire midterm convention.

这种“中国竞争”的论调正得到技术加速主义者和白宫盟友的公开响应，其中包括前白宫人工智能主管大卫·萨克斯（David Sacks）以及投资者兼Palantir联合创始人乔·朗斯代尔（Joe Lonsdale）。后者在大会期间的一次辅助活动中，与史蒂夫·班农（Steve Bannon）的技术编辑乔·艾伦（Joe Allen，我上个月曾对他进行过专题报道）进行了辩论。桑德斯说，朗斯代尔和艾伦之间的那场对话，是她在整个中期选举大会期间唯一一次听到有人提及数据中心。

There’s some evidence that voters haven’t quite made up their minds on how heavily to weigh the issue—and which party to trust. The New York Times poll found that AI and data centers rank far down the list of voters’ priorities, and almost 20 percent say they don’t know which party would handle the issue better.

有证据表明，选民们还没有完全决定如何权衡这个问题，以及该信任哪个政党。《纽约时报》的民调发现，人工智能和数据中心在选民优先事项清单中排名非常靠后，近20%的人表示不知道哪个政党能更好地处理这个问题。

And candidates otherwise aligned with Trump may just decide to ignore cues from the White House. Tom Tiffany, the Republican nominee for governor in Wisconsin, has scored Trump’s endorsement. But he’s also attacked his Democratic opponent David Crowley for what Tiffany claims are pro-data-center views.

此外，那些在其他方面与特朗普保持一致的候选人，可能会选择无视来自白宫的信号。威斯康星州共和党州长候选人汤姆·蒂芙尼（Tom Tiffany）获得了特朗普的背书，但他同时也攻击了他的民主党对手大卫·克劳利（David Crowley），理由是蒂芙尼声称对方持有支持数据中心的观点。

But despite breaks like Tiffany’s and concerns like Sanders’, Trump “thinks MAGA at the end of the day will back him—on Epstein, on Iran, on AI,” Hugo says.

但雨果表示，尽管存在像蒂芙尼这样的分歧和像桑德斯这样的担忧，特朗普“认为归根结底，MAGA阵营会在爱泼斯坦、伊朗和人工智能等问题上支持他”。