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The constraint behind America's AI buildout is physical: data centres require land and power at a scale that forces direct confrontation with local communities.
Historian Jill Lepore argues that the political opposition accumulating around these facilities has moved well beyond local planning boards and is now reshaping American politics.
Lepore frames the current period as "America's AI election." The phrase treats community resistance to data centre development as an electoral variable rather than a permitting footnote.
Where these facilities get sited, and under what conditions, has become a live political question with consequences well above the zoning level.
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