Calder McHugh writes:

It’s become a common occurrence: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer posts a light-hearted video on social media. She’s Christmas shopping, or she’s talking about her Michigan accent or she’s touting her administration’s accomplishments. And immediately, the comments start rolling in, all demanding the same thing: Say no to data centers in the state. Stop construction. “All I want for Christmas is legislation banning data centers in Michigan.”

National figures in the party are beginning to notice the anger. What began on the ground with widespread protests against the facilities that provide infrastructure for the growth of artificial intelligence is finding its way into new plans, memos and rhetoric as the Democratic Party thinks about how to win in 2026 and 2028.

It’s an argument that began in the progressive wing but is increasingly finding purchase across the party: Be proudly, loudly, without reservations, anti-AI. It’s not enough, these pollsters, consultants and elected officials say, to caution, minimally regulate and signal a friendly stance toward tech companies building AI. There is a massive, growing opportunity for Democrats to tap into rising anxiety, fear and anger about the havoc AI could wreak in people’s lives, they say, on issues from energy affordability to large-scale job losses, and channel it toward a populist movement — and not doing it, or not doing it strongly enough, will hurt the party.

“The contrast is so obvious. On one side there’s the billionaires, and on the other side there’s everyone else,” said Lakshya Jain, the co-founder of the polling firm Split Ticket and the head of political data at the publication The Argument. “I think [Democrats] should be bolder. A lot of tech companies have a lot of power, and they have a lot of capital and economic influence. But politically speaking, you can go a lot harder on economic populism. The public wants to see something bold on costs.”

To many people who spend their days thinking about how Democrats can energize their base and prove their anti-billionaire bona fides, going all-in on opposing the AI industry is one obvious, winning way to do so. The loosely defined coalition of people calling for this approach includes socialists, independents from rural states and mainstream Democrats who have turned concern about tech into a pet issue, arguing it can form the basis of a new populist brand of politics that has long proven difficult for Democrats to execute effectively and on a large scale — but whose time may have come. [Continue reading…]