0ShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberSee more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search. Do you think Donald Trump is a secret R. E. M. fan? Trump was, wittingly or not, channeling “Shiny Happy People” when selling the virtues of data centers alongside some of Big Tech’s biggest names this week. They were gathered together to discuss how to win the global AI race without killing everyone. A noble mission. “This is a group that loves local communities,” Trump said, as the tech leaders around him stared like reluctant teenagers visiting an elderly relative, showing little enthusiasm for their supposed love of communities. These billionaire nerds are going to “work with local communities” on data centers to make them “very, very happy,” Trump said. How? By pumping them with enough money to buy off their concerns about these resource-devouring behemoths. Put another way, the tech brolionaires are going to throw their love around, take it into your town, and then put it in the ground as foundations for a data center. But don't worry, where the flowers used to grow, gold and silver will shine instead. And the local people will all be shiny happy people holding hands. No time to cry, happy, happy. You get the tedious drift. If you didn’t understand why a lot of R. E. M. fans kept it secret before, perhaps it’s a little clearer now. Trump reached into his own political lexicon for what to brand this inducement for reluctant residents: “you could call it a dividend because a dividend sounds right. ”
Ah yes, Trump’s solve-all “dividend,” currently going through a midterms test run. The trouble is, aren’t data centers just too unpopular for this form of legal-but-unsubtle bribery to work? In Congress, data centers are the AI issue scrambling the two main parties. Among voters, opposition crosses party lines, and the facilities have become attack-ad material before November’s midterms. The polling is grim reading for the likes of Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Pew found that 60 percent of Americans would be uncomfortable with a new data center nearby, including 54 percent of Republicans. Yet research on paying communities to accept other unwanted projects suggests Trump’s instinct is pretty sound. Money can buy goodwill, with caveats. Related StoryThe Data Center ElectionThe $10K Data Center DividendIn Hazle Township, Pennsylvania, NorthPoint Development has promised every eligible household $10,000 if it builds its Project Hazelnut campus, as part of a $165 million package that also pledges $7 million a year to the township for 15 years.