Trump faces AI backlash from labor unions and data center critics: Analysis

An emerging coalition of religious leaders, labor unions and local activists concerned about artificial intelligence and the widespread economic havoc it portends poses political problems for those on the wrong side of the issue. And the person most at risk is President Donald Trump.

AI is right in the political blind spot. The industry and its rapidly evolving technology threaten to overwhelm Mr. Trump’s often uncanny ability to sense shifting political winds, potentially damaging the party’s fortunes in the midterm elections and the long-term legacy he cherishes.

Mr. Trump seems aware of the danger, but he can’t help but rush toward it.

On Thursday, he emphasized a commitment by data center developers and power companies not to raise electricity rates, a nod to concerns across the country that a surge in data center construction will lead to higher utility bills for Americans. This pledge extends to OpenAI and oraclehas become a political cover as the complex economics of making changes to America’s aging power grid unfold over years and decades.

But President Trump couldn’t help but fall in line with the companies, even at an Environmental Protection Agency event about his pledge to show he cares about the little guy. He urged the assembled governors and other local officials to sell their voters in data centers. “You can’t fight it. You have to go with it,” he said.

Someone is going to get rich from data center development, and it could be you, he told the audience. “If you don’t take all that money, someone else will. You’re better off doing it yourself.”

Here’s the thing about getting rich. If Americans smell the possibility of it happening to them, they don’t need to be told twice to avoid it. That’s why crypto markets and prediction markets are hard-to-fail ideas, no matter how slim the chances are that you personally will actually get rich from them.

But when it comes to artificial intelligence, ordinary Americans don’t buy into the idea that Big Tech companies will hand them a golden lottery ticket. President Trump can promote the stock market boom all he wants. Nasdaq Composite The company has posted 20 record closing prices this year. But too few Americans care enough about the rising stock prices of a select few high-tech companies, or the markets that include them, to overcome concerns about job insecurity and continued wealth concentration.

In other words, Elon Musk’s space x It seemed like a great opportunity for those who were able to invest early. For those lucky regular Joes who had a few dollars in their brokerage accounts from last month’s IPO, the stock is down 30%.

And now, the powerful political coalition that influences the voters President Trump most wants to appeal to is adding to the class-and-wealth question of AI.

The president may be willing to ignore Pope Leo XIV, who issued an influential encyclical in May warning that AI needs guardrails to protect humanity. But President Trump will not be able to so easily dispel the same words coming from the heart of the evangelical movement here in the United States.

Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, praised the Pope’s warning against AI. “There are positive benefits, but there are also extraordinary harms,” ​​Kim told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday.

Kim worried that AI’s prominence in medicine, education, and warfare risks forcing humans out of the picture in the most important decisions.

“As the Pope said in his recent encyclical, it is the building of the Tower of Babel, the reliance on technology that reflects human arrogance, that not only separates us from God, but also from each other,” Kim said.

Mr. Kim’s evangelical group does not endorse any candidate and has not threatened any public political campaign against Mr. Trump. However, Mr. Kim’s message is a warning sign that the ground is shifting even among voters who have supported Mr. Trump since the early days of his first presidential election.

Other groups that support President Trump and other Republican politicians and may want him to win have been even more outspoken. Republicans appealed for support for unions under the Trump administration, with mixed success. Increasingly, concerns about AI need to be taken more seriously if unions are to gain support.

Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor union, made this clear at her union convention last month.

“To all the candidates who are starting to run for president in 2028, if you want the highest job in this country, hear this: Workers should come before algorithms,” she said.

Schuller doesn’t claim to be anti-AI, but he wants new technology to be more useful than technology companies and their investors. So did Sean O’Brien, president of the International Teamsters organization, who spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention. “We’ve never been at the table,” he said at a recent event with Palantir CEO Alex Karp hosted by the center-right group American Compass.

“I think the biggest challenge to AI in this country is political instability,” interjected Karp, who grew up in a union family.

The potential for such concerns is clear from the nationwide uproar over data centers.

Liberal New York state, under Gov. Kathy Hochul, may have been the first to move to pause data center construction. But so far, the issue has not polarized in the familiar directions. A June poll by the Yale Climate Communication Project found that a majority of conservative Republicans (53%) oppose building local data centers.

The survey found that a majority of registered voters (58%) said they opposed building local data centers, as did 74% of liberal Democrats.

A broad coalition of the religious right, labor unions and local activists are coming together to advocate “slowing down” AI. Politicians who listen will find there is a strong groundswell of support behind it.

Who doesn’t? Well, there are 101 days left until Election Day in November.