Unlikely alliance: Bannon joins forces with Sanders, AOC over AI, data center restrictions - report
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- Steve Bannon has backed Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s opposition to new data centers, creating an alliance across the US political divide.
- The coalition cites concerns about artificial intelligence, power and water consumption, job losses, surveillance and distrust of big technology companies.
- Opposition to data centers is entering midterm election campaigns, although major federal legislation has made little progress in Congress.
Steve Bannon and progressive Democrats Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have found common ground in an unlikely place: opposition to new data centers and concern over the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence.
Bannon, the former chief strategist to Donald Trump and now a far-right podcast host, has publicly supported a proposal from Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez to ban construction of new data centers. He has also rallied against the Trump administration’s industry-friendly AI strategy, which bars states from adopting their own regulations, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The only reason that communities throughout the USA should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor.
Trump has strongly promoted new data centers. In a social-media post on Monday, he wrote, “The only reason that communities throughout the USA should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor.”
Bannon has set aside disagreements with the progressive lawmakers, including over immigration, because he sees artificial intelligence as “the defining issue” of the future. “If we don’t get this right, none of that other stuff is going to matter,” he said in an interview. He added that he had not seen another issue in modern American life that united such different groups at the populist level.
If we don’t get this right, none of that other stuff is going to matter.
Sanders acknowledged the unusual partnership. “Politics is always a situation where you make strange coalitions and different coalitions every day,” he said, adding that many people on the right shared his concerns.
I have not seen any issue in modern American life that, at the populist level, unites disparate elements of our country more than this.
Those concerns include the electricity and water used by data centers, potential job losses, surveillance and distrust of large technology companies. The debate has grown for more than a year and is becoming a contested issue ahead of the midterm elections.
A Wall Street Journal review of AdImpact transcripts found data-center criticism in campaign advertisements in more than 70 House and Senate races since 2025. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro have moved to pause or restrict some projects after previously promoting the sector’s economic benefits. Despite the backlash, major congressional legislation targeting data centers has gained little traction, while Sanders has introduced a bill seeking a federal moratorium on new facilities.
Politics is always a situation where you make strange coalitions and different coalitions every day. But on this issue, I think many of the right-wing people have the same concerns that I have.
About this summary
Originally published by Jerusalem Post. Summarized and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.
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