Latest / Computer Says Maybe / Follow the AI Money: Big Tech’s Midterm Spending Spree w/ Steven Renderos

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Follow the AI Money: Big Tech’s Midterm Spending Spree w/ Steven Renderos · Computer Says Maybe

• [00:00:00] Hey everybody, this is Alix Dunn. Welcome back to Computer Says Maybe, where I talk to the people pushing back on tech power and fighting for something better. The US midterms are just over a week away, and the AI industry is pouring money into campaigns of all stripes. AI and crypto PACs are on track to spend half a billion dollars, a billion with a B, this election season in hopes of shaping how tech gets regulated in the years ahead. But you might not know it from watching their ads. The ads these groups are paying for focus on issues like ICE, healthcare, and Trump without ever mentioning AI itself. So why would the industry invest that much money without mentioning AI? Today, I am joined by Stephen Rinderos, executive director of Media Justice, to unpack the strategy behind the spending and what happens when the industry's push for political influence meets growing resistance on the ground. We dig into how [00:01:00] data centers have become a kitchen table issue for communities across the country, what that opposition reveals about the industry's vulnerabilities, and how communities can turn local momentum into lasting political power. Here's my conversation with Stephen. Hi, everyone. My name is Steven Renderos, and I'm the executive director of Media Justice. I'm based in Chicago, Illinois, and Media Justice is a national racial justice organization that fights to challenge the way corporations try to control media and technology in our society. What is Media Justice? What do you work on? How do you work? Media Justice started back in Oakland in 2001. Originally, we were called the Youth Media Council, and we were originally, you know, set up to fight corporate consolidation of media. Back then, the big giant corporations we were fighting were cable companies that were buying up, like, you know, local TV stations and, you know, large media companies and consolidating them. And a lot of our work in the early years was trying to [00:02:00] fight that consolidation. In 2009, we actually went national under our founder, Malkia Devich-Cyril, and the idea for MAC back then was pretty simple, that there, at the national level, there, there needed to be a racial justice organization that was fighting for the media and technology rights of people of color. At the time, there really wasn't anything. You know, you had public interest organizations that were primarily based in Washington, DC, that were doing a lot of, like, policy advocacy work around media and tech issues. But there really weren't that many people of color-led organizations that were in that space. And so over the years, uh, as we became national, our work evolved, you know, much like media and technology evolved in our society. So we went from fighting media mergers to fighting for affordable broadband to fighting for net neutrality, reforming the prison telephone industry, pushing back against surveillance technology and policing. But the through line in all of that history, even though we're, we're kinda jumping into different issues, [00:03:00] is that the people facing the harms of media and technology should be at the center of, like, helping make decisions about What are the policies? What are the laws? Who gets to own the media and technology that shapes our lives? So that's been kind of a, the, the mission since we started, and today, you know, while the, the big corporate giants look very different, the work is still the same. It's organizing people of color to have a seat at the table, and, and we do that today by doing three things. We do research and political education, um, that people can use in their organizing, and this is, you know, like the People Say No report, which we published last September of 2025, which documented data center development build-out in the US South. We recently published a report called Media Capture, looking at how tech oligarchs are, are buying up big segments of traditional and digital media. We also do direct organizing. We support local campaigns. We right now are organizing in 20-plus different [00:04:00] cities, helping local organizers fight the construction of data centers, fight their flock contracts, fight automatic license plate readers. And then lastly, we also do convenings because if we're organizing with communities in the field, um, part of the role that we see ourselves at the national level playing is helping kind of weave that field to feel like a part of a larger movement. So we do that through creating in-person spaces where people can come together and really connect with each other across these issues. Um, and our signature gathering that we, we do in partnership with Mijente, Take Back Tech, brings together, you know, over 500 organizers, um, who get to be in a shared space, get to swap stories, swap resources. And I would say lastly, like today in the work that we do, the front lines of the battle to really put people of color at the center of shaping decisions around media and technology are around data centers and surveillance, so many of the issues that we fight on are kind of on, on those two [00:05:00] fronts. When you think over the last 10 years and how the political landscape in the United States has changed, like how has Media Justice, like how have you, um, sort of looked at that landscape, understood that landscape, um, and sort of, um, prioritized, I guess, where you all invest your energy and sort of try and build political momentum? Yeah, I mean, 10 years ago We were kind of at the tail end of the battle for net neutrality, and if you look at, like, the alliances that were formed in that fight, many of our allies in that struggle are now many of the companies we're fighting against. Meta being one of those companies that was on the pro-net neutrality side. Many other tech companies were as well, so there were strange bedfellows. But when you see what's happened to that industry over the ensuing decade, their power, their ability to amass capital has increased dramatically. Their political influence has increased dramatically, and they are now real legitimate political forces that are shaping the cultural, [00:06:00] political, economic conditions that people have to experience every day, even more so than our government is. You know, what we walked away from that experience realizing is that we could look back at that history and look at a lot of concrete victories along the way. You know, we were one-- among one of the many groups that was pushing Facebook to conduct an independent civil rights audit that was successful. They agreed to do it eventually. A lot of that, the, the outcome of that audit led to, you know, election integrity changes on the platform, changes to content moderation, the deplatforming of white nationalist voices on that platform, um, led to a lot of changes that, for a period of time, like, actually improved conditions for users on that platform. You know, we were a part of pushing Amazon to stop selling facial recognition technology, you know, to police departments. We also helped to push some of the nation's first facial recognition bans. So there's no shortage of victories that we could point at and say, "Wow, we won all these different things." But then when we [00:07:00] assessed, like, how did the power of the industry that we were fighting against get challenged, we see this unfortunate history of where their power really wasn't challenged in any concrete way, and they got bigger and stronger while we got smaller and weaker, and many of the victories that we notched along the way were not durable wins. You know? The independent civil rights audit Might as well have never happened, you know, because you can get to the beginning of Trump 2.0 and have Mark Zuckerberg in a very one fell swoop just get rid of fact-checking on the platform, a, a platform that affects, like, hundreds of millions of people. And so yeah, I mean, just seeing that, that radical change, that the power of this industry that at one point we were actually on the same side on some issues now be a direct opposition who has built so much power, and that's the power that we have to challenge in this moment. I think that's been one of the biggest lessons. I think the other thing I would say is, you know, one of the things I learned about the tech [00:08:00] industry over this ensuing time is they're opportunists. They kind of like to flow to where they see the political winds shifting. So a decade ago, they were writing open letters against, uh, the Muslim travel ban. They were, you know, I remember Jeff Bezos posting an Instagram post about how much Black lives matter, you know. And they were willing to say all of those things, you know, say the right things, but their actions, like, rarely ever followed because the products that they were developing, the technologies that they were implementing in society were exacerbating conditions, particularly for people of color here in the US, for poor and working class people. So they were willing to say all the right things a decade ago when it felt politically convenient. But in this moment now, I think we see their true colors. You know, they're willing to show up on Inauguration Day during Trump 2.0 and, and unveil a tech oligarchy evolving in front of us. They're willing to partner with the Trump administration to do [00:09:00] some of the most harmful and regressive things that are impacting people like, you know, equipping ICE with all the technology they need to make mass deportation infrastructure a real thing. So they're opportunists, and I think that's, that's another thing I learned, that you can't take these companies at their word, and that's particularly a, a, an important lesson for us, especially right now as these companies are trying to build massive infrastructure and coming in making a lot of promises about what they'll do. Now it feels like the new way to challenge power, to truly challenge power, is to actually engage people in the material ways that these technology companies affect their daily lives. But do you want to talk a little bit about trying to help more people understand what's going on and why you think that effort is so important in terms of building the kind of political momentum, the political leverage to actually challenge directly, um, industry's power? One of the unique challenges, I think, that an institution like Media Justice who- whose primary orientation was to organize [00:10:00] people of color, is that for the movements that we were trying to relate ourselves to, movements fighting mass incarceration, movements fighting police violence, you know, movements, uh, fighting for housing justice and, and climate justice, trying to make the case for why This issue matters and is central to the thing that they're trying to win. That was a challenge. You know, I could make the argument, but for many of the groups that we were working with, like, net neutrality was never gonna be a primary issue. It was always gonna be a secondary issue. The primary thing that the communities we were organizing in cared about kind of merged with this other issue that we cared about. And, you know, at the time that net neutrality passed at the federal level through an order from the Federal Communications Commission back in 2015, you know, something interesting was happening across the country. There were mass organizing happening against police violence, and that movement, which had, had really lived as, like, [00:11:00] these kinds of individual incursions, uh, that would pop off in cities where a shooting or a killing would happen, that movement started, started getting a name, you know? It was... And it, and it started as an online conversation among three Black women who were saying, like, Black lives matter, #BlackLivesMatter. And this online conversation then shifted into an offline movement, and that became kind of an entry point for us to say, "You see this thing? You see this thing that happened?" Yeah. "This movement that's emerging? Net neutrality matters in this context," and we were able to organize people through that. But, but I guess, like, that's, uh, that's a long way of saying that, like, we found opportunities to, to take a secondary issue and organize people of color around. One of the unique things that's happening in this moment, we actually don't have to convince people about the tech right now, that the tech issue matters. Actually, before you... 'Cause, 'cause the other... I mean, net neutrality is, like, the driest, most abstract thing. Um, but even surveillance, I feel like 10 years ago, 15- maybe 15 years ago, not 10 years ago, [00:12:00] was still, like, hard to talk about in concrete terms. Yeah. And now it feels like- You're touching a nerve. Like, people really viscerally understand, and that might be, um, uh, disproportionate, maybe marginalized groups who are more targeted by law enforcement in horrible ways, um, historically were more reactive when people talked about surveillance or more likely to participate in, um, mobilizing around surveillance and technology entering their communities. Um, but I'm wondering, like, did surveillance take that arc as well in terms of, like, becoming this kind of intangible, like, uh, abstract thing? Or, or, I mean, the communities that you organize, has it always been what it feels like it is now, which is this, like, lightning rod of political interest and engagement? What's interesting with surveillance is that there were, in many of the communities we were organizing in, you know, we have groups that were fighting body-worn cameras and facial recognition technology as far back as 2012, 2011. One of the things that happened there is obviously the, the Edward Snowden leaks happened, I think, in [00:13:00] 2013. And, you know, surveillance, uh, and mass surveillance in particular became this, this massive conversation. Mm. So I think, like, I think the lesson in that is that the history shows us that when political conditions are fraught, you will have these opportunities and these moments of mass appeal. Now, what we do with that mass appeal, how that energy is captured is the real question. It's the organizing challenge. Can that, like, mass outrage be organized into a political force- Mm-hmm ... um, that's willing to fight for things? And I think we experienced that in 2013 as everybody was massively outraged about these companies that are providing these back end, like, links to, to the federal government to support, like, mass surveillance, not just of Muslims, which some people were okay with post 9/11, not just against immigrants, which some people were okay with because, you know, the, the immigrants have been criminalized in media and, and in policy for a really long time, [00:14:00] not just, uh, you know, surveillance against Black people, which some people were willing to accept because, hey, crime happens more in, in those neighborhoods than in other neighborhoods. But now all of a sudden everybody's affected, so there's this, this massive outrage. But I think the question is, like, we had that opportunity in 2013, and I think you did see some organizing that emerged from that at the federal, at the state, at the local level of real pushes to, to try to restrict and reign in what happens with this technology, like the, the facial recognition bans that happen at the city level. Like, we were a part of the first one in San Francisco, and, you know, in San Francisco and the Bay Area, once, once one city does something, everybody does something. So we started seeing these consecutive like Oakland does something, Emeryville did something, Berkeley did something. And so You know, there were some concrete, like, policy changes that happened, but, but was that field that was outraged around these issues, like, organized into political organizations where you could leverage that power for something else, the next fight and the [00:15:00] fight after that? Because that is- Yeah ... that is, like, kind of the lesson in that, is that we, we might have won the initial battle, but we, we, overall, we lost the overall war. Because at the end of the day, like I think the mistake we made is that the fight was over the technology. We gotta restrict the use of this one technology or these sets of technologies. Really, what we have to restrict is the business model that allows for this kind of scale of surveillance to happen. We didn't do much around the data, the data collection, and what companies are able to do with that data. Certainly, like, there's things that we've tried over the years that, you know, trying to regulate the data broker industry to really get at the business model, the surveillance, like, capitalism model of this to, to Shoshana Zuboff's work. But yeah, I think that that was the lesson in that. We, we kinda stopped at the technology, we stopped at the initial victory, and we really needed to have durable, organized people that we can then organize for the next thing and the thing after that. Um, which brings us to, I think, this [00:16:00] moment, which is, like, it's both exciting that you have, you know, data centers probably in this midterm election is gonna be one of the defining issues. And I can't think of a time in which, like, tech and a tech issue was a kitchen table conversation. And I think that's translated into organizing, people on the ground willing to show up to city council meetings, to county commission meetings, to some of the most boring government meetings and, you know, press their case against, uh, against elected officials. And it's leading to concrete victories. You have, at this point right now, more than 100 active local and state moratoriums around the construction of data centers. You have cities that have passed, um, really robust ordinances that create rules of the road for how data centers can come into a community. And Tucson, Arizona is one of the most recent examples where we did a lot of work on the ground supporting the local organizing there. So there is this moment where there's a lot of [00:17:00] something that, uh, Norma Wong, this kind of philosopher strategist says, you know, she calls it organic energy. It's this kinda energy of people that are willing to flock to something. You don't have to tell them to show up to a thing, they just go. So there's a lot of organic energy around, around data centers, and the question is what does that organic energy get directed towards, if anything? And so the Brobots Versus The People campaign for us is injecting something that I think this field needs in this moment, which is real-time analysis, understanding not just the fight that you have in front of you in your neighborhood, but then making sense of why that data center is being built within a larger context. Mm-hmm. And so this political education series is our sort of contribution to that. Brobots is a, is a term that, that we, we coined- I love ... among some folks on, on our side. Yeah, it's kinda bringing the, the tech bro and robots thing together. But, you know, last year we were, we were spending a lot of time talking about educating [00:18:00] people on the figures inside of the tech oligarchy that were very central to the agenda of the Trump administration. But we realized that Tech oligarchs are not able to fully do everything that they're trying to do on their own. They need minions, and they need people who have opted into their vision of the world and their agenda. Mm-hmm. And we call those figures brobots, and we created archetypes. You know, we have the, the, the Silicon Valley brobot. You have the, the brobot cop, you know, the, the cops in the streets, like the ICE agents who have the biometric, like, software that are collecting our data. You have the, you know, the politician brobot, the people who are taking the political money and willing to opt in to the policies and agenda that the tech oligarchs want. And so we wanted to use this political education series right now in this moment Heading into a very consequential election to tell people what are these brobots actually up to right now, and connect that to [00:19:00] what you're fighting in your local community right now. I think it's the most important contribution I think that we can make in this moment, because otherwise, that organizing that's happening on the ground can be completely divorced from the political moment. Mm-hmm. And what people need in this moment as, as Stuart Hall, this cultural theorist, would often talk about, is people need kind of an assessment of the conjuncture of this moment, what he called the history of the present. Not so that we can show people, like, "Hey, we're right, and we know. We can have this great analysis to tell you all the things that are gonna happen," but really so that we can do something about it. Um, so we can point at, like, what are the forces at play right now in this moment? What are these, what are these brobots up to? What are they trying to win? What are we gonna do? So that's, that's Brobots Versus The People. It's a political education series, but it's also paired with on-the-ground organizing. Um, we're helping to do people's movement assemblies across the country. We're convening people as part of that as well, so really excited to, to be [00:20:00] doing that work in this moment and kind of offering that to people and giving them the visuals, giving them the archetypes. You know, we produce toolkits. We've produced, like, an animation for people made by real human beings, not AI, that people can then use and, and incorporate into their local work. If someone was trying to kind of decipher the implications of AI money in the midterm elections, are there takeaways you have so far from what you all are learning, or what do you think people should be looking out for when they want to see the way that these tech companies are influencing the political process right now? Yeah. First and foremost, that there is a lot of hidden money that's moving in this moment, a lot of money that's being funneled through tech aligned, you know, political action committees or PACs, you know. And they're largely coming from the AI industry and the crypto industry. By the time everything is said and done, I think these PACs will have spent more on this midterm election, you know, 2026, than in, uh, any, any other [00:21:00] previous election in, in recent years. I think at this point so far, 500 million between these, like, AI and crypto PACs have been spent, so half a billion dollars has already been spent You know, a lot of that money is being kind of like, if you think about the AI PACs as like those Russian dolls, you have these kind of like big umbrella PACs like Leading the Future, which is an OpenAI-aligned PAC, OpenAI being the company behind ChatGPT. But within that kind of Russian doll, there's also these smaller dolls, and they have like multiple little PACs. And those little PACs, some of them are giving to Democrats, some of them are giving to Republicans, some of them are funding towards specific policies or advocating for specific policies. Some of them are not advocating for anything related to tech. They're just funneling money, um, for political ads towards their preferred candidates. And it's a mishmash of things, but the thing you gotta know is like, ultimately, it tracks back to the AI industry spending a ton of money in this [00:22:00] election, the crypto industry spending a ton of money, and they're doing it, um, in ways that are hidden. And one of the things we-- one example of this that we talk about in the political education series is about $10 million that goes from one of these Leading the Future PACs towards these two kind of shell companies that were both founded on the same exact day within the last year with a Nevada mailing address. And all it says in the filings with the FEC, the Federal Election Commission, s- you know, it was used to pay for a broad range of services from like campaign consulting to, you know, video production to marketing and PR and social media, like a broad range of services that it would be incredibly unique to have a company who could do all of those things, especially a company that was recently just founded in the last year. And I think part of the reason they're doing that is because then you get to kinda hide where that money is going beyond that, because you only have to disclose to the [00:23:00] FEC where you sent that $10 million initially. What that shell company decides to do after that, and who they pay, and what they route that money towards, like, that goes out of public view. So there's a lot of hidden money that's moving. The second thing I'd say is that a lot of the political ads that the AI companies are paying for actually don't mention AI at all. They talk about ICE, they talk about China, they talk about Trump, they talk about healthcare, but they're not mentioning AI at all, and that's because they know that right now, AI and data centers is polling really badly. Their issue is not popular, so they're not trying to go out there and convince you to believe in their technology and to support their data centers. The political ads they're paying for are really just to support the candidates, both Republicans and Democrats, who they think are gonna be on board with their agenda. And, you know, they're also paying for political ads against candidates that they think are gonna be against their agenda. So that's, that's kind of an interesting thing that's [00:24:00] come up- Mm-hmm ... in the series so far. Then the last thing I'll say is one of the parts of the playbook of the AI industry right now is to manufacture support. Because they don't have the support of people and they're polling so badly, now they've kind of veered into tactics to try to generate support and, and make it seem like, you know, the communities that are very staunchly against them, including poor people and people of color Are actually for it. One of the examples we talk about in the series is this, uh, this mailer that got sent out in Doña Ana County in New Mexico. It was these mailers in support of Project Jupiter, and it's got this, like, beautiful Latina woman with a banner that says, "A new day for Mexico," and it talks about all the wonderful benefits of this, like, large scale, you know, hyperscale data center project that's coming into the community. Here's hundreds of millions of dollars to build schools, and more millions of dollars for these other things, and it's gonna bring all [00:25:00] these jobs. We, we realized that, like, the Latina there was probably a stock photo, and we did in fact find that stock photo on a dentist website. Oh, no. So either this Latina is, like, super into data centers and super into dental care, which are the two most important DCs out there, um, or this is just, like, manufacturing a brown face on a mailer to make it seem like we support this thing, which of course they don't. And the company behind that mailer is a company who created a shell company in New Mexico. They're actually based in Alexandria, Virginia, but, you know, it's a company that, that is not from New Mexico that's trying to make it seem like New Mexicans actually care about this thing. And we've seen kind of a similar version of this now with paid protesters showing up at things. Um, we were doing a, a rally outside of, um, Prince George County, kind of leading up to a vote for a moratorium there, and we saw, like, busloads of people wearing these bright orange T-shirts [00:26:00] show up with, like, pro-data center messaging, and they had been paid to be there. What's sad about it, it was predominantly Black folks that were being given money to show up at this thing, wear this T-shirt, and told, like, show up and, and kind of counter the protest that was gonna be there. So this is the tactics that they're getting into in this moment. They're so deeply unpopular that now they wanna pay for that kind of support to manufacture as if it's real. What do you think these companies Are trying to buy I think what they're learning in this moment, the, the AI industry, is just how outmaneuvered they are at the hyperlocal level. 'Cause when you show up to a city council meeting or when you show up to a county commission, you're dealing with, like, elected officials who are being voted into office by not that many votes. And so if you can whip up a lot of opposition pretty proactively against these kind of-- a- against, you know, certain figures, like, some of those elected officials will find themselves out of office, [00:27:00] as we are seeing in this moment. Um, a lot of local politicians who have been staunch supporters of- Mm ... a data center project are being recalled. So I think that's one thing, I think, a realization that that's not a place where they're gonna be effective. So then you move to the state and federal level, and there's a couple things I would say. Like, one thing is, at the state level, states that are motivated to actually try to rein in what AI technology does in our society and tries to place guardrails, like, there's real possibilities, and we've seen, you know, advances towards this at, uh, in places like California, where there is policy that's been proactively moving So states, because there's a vacuum at the federal level where you have a government that's essentially saying, you know, "AI, go forth and do whatever you want, and we will, we will get rid of all the investigations, all the lawsuits, any, any regulation that gets in your way, any legislation that would've hurt you, like we're [00:28:00] gonna get rid of all of those things." So there's some states that are reacting to that vacuum and saying, "Well, if they're not gonna do something about it, we will." So I think there is, there is a real threat that at the state level there can be really, really strong, solid, proactive policy work that moves, and they need to counteract that somehow. You know, there was a, there was a push towards a federal level preemption of any state AI laws, um, which was stopped for the moment in, in Congress at the federal level. But I would imagine that if their preferred candidates get into office, um, heading into this next Congress, that that will be a thing that they try to push, that kind of federal level preemption of those state laws. Mm-hmm. At the state level, however, we're also seeing, you know, Sergey Brin, we talk about this in the political education series, spending $100 million towards trying to defeat a wealth tax. And so even at the state level, I think these figures are very much getting involved in a big way to try to prevent the kinds of [00:29:00] policies and, and legislation that don't just affect their business models, but also hit at their wealth. So I think that's some of where they're trying to spend their money and, and what for. And I think what the AI companies know is that actually it matters less like if you're-- if the politician has an R or a D at the end. They just want the candidates that are gonna be beholden to them, that yes, will pick up the phone call, but then will proactively stifle any legislation and proactively push for policies that benefit them. Yeah. I mean, I feel like they are broadly organized, um, and these new coalitions that are forming increasingly show organized opposition. Um, but I think, I mean, your point earlier about these windows of opportunity for mass appeal, we're in one. Like we're square in one where these issues are, like, main-- This is as mainstream as you can get in terms of people feeling switched on, um, people all of a sudden, um, organizing on an issue that maybe they didn't even [00:30:00] know about a year ago, um, like, in a, a non-partisan way, um, in terms of, like, it not really mattering if you're Republican or a Democrat. It feels like it-- like, literally everyone, um, uh, is getting in on this fight. But that then means that, like, the coalition... Like, I don't know. You g- you kinda have, like, a tiger by the tail in these moments with mass appeal, and I'm wondering, I mean, I know you have a long history of organizing. So what's it like to build a coalition around this kind of thing? What's-- It's fun right now. Uh, and I know that's, like, a weird term or phrase to use in this moment where there's, there's so much polarization left and right, um, no pun intended. But building coalitions at the local level in local site fights, fighting data centers is fun because coalitions work when you have a set of people that feel really aligned towards a shared goal. And so one thing I would say that kind of emerges in, in the data center space where you have a difference of opinion in terms of what the ultimate outcome should be, is it fighting to stop a [00:31:00] project? Is it to win concessions through community benefits agreements or something else? I think one interesting thing that I think is worth putting into, into the mix here is that when you get on the ground and you actually talk to people, and you ask them what they want- They want the project to be stopped. They want to bring a pause. They want to slow down. They think that this thing feels like a moving train that's getting away from them, and they have had zero say in. And I think there's something really important in that to really help communities actually fight for what they want, even if it feels impossible, because I think the biggest mistake we can make in, in our organizing today is to give in to the inevitability argument. I hear it left and right. "These things are gonna get built no matter what. AI is here." You know? The inevitability of the thing is, uh, by conceding that ground, which is kind of a ground in our minds, then we actually concede a lot of ground politically, a lot of ground in our [00:32:00] communities in terms of what's possible. Honestly, for me, that was a lesson I learned in one of my, in my first organizing job when I was working at a tenants union representing manufactured home park residents or, or trailer park residents. And I was doing a lot of organizing in kinda suburban neighborhoods in the Twin Cities and also in rural Minnesota. And I remember organizing in this one community called Arden Hills, which is kind of a, a northern suburb of Minnesota. And there was this, like, empty plot of land that used to be kind of a, an ammunitions plant during kinda World War II that was making, like, bullets and stuff like that, um, to support the war effort. But that, that ammunitions plant, which at that time when I got involved was completely vacant, sat across the street from a manufactured home park. And the, the land, the empty land, was being considered for a Vikings stadium. And so the City of Arden Hills, they wanted the Vikings stadium- I bet ... 'cause come on, who doesn't want- Yeah you know, who doesn't want this sports franchise- Yeah ... to be coming to you? So convenient. [00:33:00] Of course. And they had these plans for like, "Oh my gosh, we're gonna build like mixed like business development here and some housing, and oh my God, this is gonna- You can see it ... raise the, like, tax revenue." Yeah. However, to, to be able to accommodate a, you know, National Football League - size stadium there. And to accommodate the traffic that would come into the community, they needed to expand the highway that this, that, that surrounded this area. And there were... Actually, the manufactured home park community was actually surrounded on all three sides. It was kind of a triangle. It was surrounded by an interstate highway, a county road, and, and a state highway. Terrible for air quality. Yeah. And of course, like, this community of mostly poor people, they were, they were subjected to that. But they needed to expand the lanes in, in the highway on, on the side that where the, the empty plot of land sat. And rather than expand into the empty plot of land, they wanted to expand into the manufactured home park, and they would've risked, uh, in a community of, like, 75 homes, [00:34:00] like 50 of those homes. And so the city, the state, was considering kinda capturing that land through eminent domain. They contacted our tenants union to say, "Hey, we, we need you to go and do a meeting with the residents and tell them that this thing is gonna happen, and just inform them of their rights. Just tell them what they're entitled to under, like, federal eminent domain laws. Tell them that they will be compensated, they will be able to relocate. Give them the details." And, you know, I think we were asking a lot of questions about, like, "Wait a second," like, "Is this thing done?" Like, "Is this, is this a done deal? Can- Yeah ... can residents actually challenge it?" And, you know, the message we got from them was like, "Nope, this is a done deal. There is nothing you can do." And they really just wanted us to go there and just do, like, a know your rights training. And I show up to this meeting room, and right before we get started, me and my organizing mentor just rip up the agenda and we're like, "You know, forget this. We're not gonna, we're not gonna do this. We're gonna talk about why this is happening." And over the course of the next hour and a half, every single resident that was [00:35:00] there was just asked, "Why do you think this is happening? Why do you think you're about to lose your home, and what do you wanna do about it?" And every single person in that room wanted to fight, even if they felt like the fight was lost. And, you know, we were like, "Okay, cool. Well, let's go show up to to the next city council meeting," which happened to be the following week. And this city, which had been accustomed to, like, maybe 10 people showing up to their city council meetings, all of a sudden had 200 people showing up. No way. The best visual I have from it is the city manager, who was a big proponent of this plan, rushing to, like, different rooms that's in, in the city hall to try to grab more chairs 'cause they didn't have enough chairs, um, for all the people that were there. And that, that moment was kind of the first domino to fall. And even after that, the city council, the state, were like, "No, we're gonna do this. It's still gonna move forward." But we kept pushing the organizing, kept fighting, kept, like, doing a town hall, showing up and bird-dogging [00:36:00] the politicians who were behind the deal. And the thing is, like, the fight took about a year and a half, but at the end of it There is no Viking Stadium in Arden Hills, and not a single home was lost. So to give in to the inevitability argument, I think, is a real, real, it's a real, we're giving up power by doing so. By and large, in the places that we're organizing in, 20-plus different cities across the US, people want to fight these things. People want to stop these things. And, you know, I see it as our charge to, to help them do that. I think the thing we have to stay aligned around is, who are we fighting against? If we think that the moratorium people are fighting the community benefits agreement people, then we've lost. If we realize that our opposition are the tech companies, the AI companies that are building the data centers, the data center developers, if we stay aligned around the fact that they're the opposition, they're not our friends, they're not our allies. If we can stay aligned around that, even if we choose different interventions, then I think we can, we can build the kind of healthy coalitions that we [00:37:00] need that helps our communities win more. How you navigate it, 'cause I think that there is this energy around fight, um, that I think, um, adversaries have successfully, in some contexts, framed as unrealistic or unreasonable, and I don't think it is or should be. To be clear, I don't think you think it is. But, um, and I'm wondering, like tactically, rhetorically, like how do you slide tackle the, like, accelerationist, you're naive kind of energy and narrative? I think you gotta continue organizing and you gotta continue building a bigger and bigger base. Yeah. Okay. Because one of the biggest disadvantages that the accelerationists have is that when you get on the ground in places where these data centers, for example, are being built, the thing that people are animated by and fighting against is not just the data center that is tied to an, to an Amazon or to an OpenAI. It is that, but it's what corporations have represented in many of those communities. You know, if you [00:38:00] live in the Texas Panhandle, if you live in the Rust Belt in Pennsylvania, and in places where big corporations made big promises and then industry left, that kind of historical memory is still there. Mm-hmm. So, you know, and I, living in Chicago, like, there's a very active fight on the South Side against a quantum computing campus, and it's, it's getting built on top of, like, what the old steel mill was. And, you know, in that neighborhood, the steel mill represented, like, the heyday, where there were a lot, a lot of jobs. There were, like, a very vibrant middle class, like, with good paying jobs, and people could afford to actually own a home. But then when that industry left and that plant shut down, like, the entire community fell apart, and nothing was there to replace it, and no one was there to, to support it after they, that industry left. So I think that historical memory is alive in many of these places where data centers are getting built. And so I think people [00:39:00] know, like, the promises that these companies are making right now doesn't mean a whole lot, 'cause I've been here before. And so I think one of the biggest ways to meet that argument isn't by necessarily providing a counterargument and trying to rhetorically win the battle. It's by winning the battle of the people. Probably keep going back to that as, like, you have this organic energy. Does that energy get captured, and if so, to what end? Because there are groups like us, groups like the Athena Coalition, who are actively supporting local communities that are trying to fight data centers, and we feel pretty aligned in our kind of assessment of the tech industry and the power behind it and the power that we need to challenge and fight. But the right is also seeing the same opportunity. They're looking at the populist energy behind data centers and seeing, seeing it as a way to, like You know, grow their ranks and move people to their side. It's why a lot of Republicans are actually taking interesting positions on data centers right now in this moment. So I think [00:40:00] the, the challenge for us is gonna be to continue building that base that can challenge the, the arguments that these accelerationists are making that we need to, to just move through it and, and build for growth. The reality is, I think there's historical memory where people know that they will end up paying the cost for whatever gets built, and the profits will leave that community. That is, that is historical memory, a muscle, and a, and an experience that people have already had. And there's nothing that these companies are promising that will help them feel like AI will be any different, because they can feel it in their pocketbooks right now. The water bill is going up. They can feel it when they walk and step outside, and they feel like their neighborhood has gotten a couple degrees hotter because there's this heat island effect coming off of this massive data center. They can hear it when they step outside, and it sounds like an airplane that's sitting outside of their home and is ready to take off, but never takes off. Like, that's what it actually feels like to live next to one of these big hyperscale data [00:41:00] centers. So in the face of that evidence, you're not gonna convince people otherwise. And our challenge, uh, as an institution like Media Justice, is we gotta organize those people. You know, it's not enough for people to be outraged. It's not enough for people to show up to a city council meeting. They gotta be organized in a way that helps them to fight for what they want. You mentioned, um, this idea that the right is also seeing this organic energy, and they're like, "Oh, how can we, you know, use this for our own benefit?" Are there things that you do to try and stop, uh, from them being, uh, successfully, I don't know, I don't wanna say captured, 'cause it implies a lack of agency, but like, sort of, uh, siphoned off into the, into the kind of right-wing ecosystem? There's a few things. I mean, that's why I think our political education work is- Hmm is immensely important. It's, it's about giving people a framework and a logic for why things are the way they are. Mm-hmm. And the right, I think, has been very effective at this, primarily because they've captured a lot of the infrastructure that shapes meaning in our society, you know, for a [00:42:00] really long time. I mean, right-wing media has been a thing. There's a really good essay by Phil Agre, who wrote this essay in the '90s for Wired that was titled "While the Left Sleeps," and it sort of lays out the, the way that the right very systematically captured, you know, different segments of the media ecosystem to create this, like, massive echo chamber. You know, and I grew up in the '90s- Mm-hmm ... and, you know, heading into the 2000s with the consequences of that, right? Like, Rush Limbaugh was a predominant voice on- Mm-hmm ... and a predominant figure in most people's lives. Today The vehicle, the delivery system might look different. It might be a Joe Rogan podcast, but the right has still maintained kind of a grip on that infrastructure is still true to this moment. So I think like there is the-- we have to be able to counter that by offering people kind of a logic for why are things the way that they are. And you can accelerate people's like [00:43:00] worldview and understanding towards a different direction if you can fight with them, if you can organize with them. Antonio Gramsci, who was this, uh, kind of Italian union organizer, talked about this concept of hegemony, you know, the ability to build this kind of soft power over people. And, you know, cultural hegemony being incredibly important in kind of consolidating power in a society because you can't, you can't rule through force alone. I think the Trump administration has learned that in, in its ICE, you know, operations across the country, where even in red districts where these, like, ICE operations are happening, and I saw it here in Chicago in some of the more conservative neighborhoods, of people being like, "Wait a second, I didn't sign up for that," you know? So you can't actually just control people through force alone. There has to be a different layer of control and, and that soft power, it's built through culture. And, and so building that, that, uh, that cultural hegemony is, is a thing that, for our side, we can build [00:44:00] when we engage in crisis. And there is no moment, I think, in our history where we could say that we- we're living through crisis more so than now. Crisis in an economy that doesn't work for people, a crisis in watching our planet, like, descend into, into chaos and, and destruction, a crisis of, like, war and famine happening all across the world and genocide. People are feeling that crisis in their communities today when struggling to find a job and struggling to, to provide for their families. So in this moment of crisis, if you help people fight for what they want, that becomes the moment where you can accelerate people towards a different worldview. My organizing mentor used to say, "You gotta act yourself into a new way of thinking." And so that's why it's incredibly important, actually, to show up for people on the ground and in these fights, fight for what they want, layer in some political education to help them understand why are things the way that they are, and through that work, actually see people develop a different understanding and be, be willing to move in a direction that [00:45:00] aligns with the worldview that I have and that Media Justice has. Um, that's, I think, the, the way to do it. Um, I, I would say the other thing is that we have to be able to speak to what we're for, not just what we fight against. Mm-hmm. You know, not just what we oppose. Because the nihilism is the thing that the other side depends on. They're not really giving you an answer for how the world will be better. They're just giving you an answer for who are the people responsible for the pain and suffering that you're experiencing today. And oftentimes, those scapegoats are immigrants, are people of color, are poor people. You know, it's those bad people over there that are the reason that things are bad here. If we just get rid of them, then everything will get better. That nihilism is what the right is willing to offer people, and it's a very enticing thing to opt into. Our side has to be willing to kinda counter that with a, an assertive and positive vision What is the world that we wanna live in? How does it function? How does it operate? I think that when, when we've [00:46:00] been faced with moments where, uh, of major crisis, um, and you can think of moments where a mass shooting takes place in a local community or when we lived through a global pandemic. When there was a shock to the system, people reverted to humanity. People reverted to connection. Um, it's why in some of the most deeply red places where mass shootings take place, people who were staunchly, you know, Second Amendment people are now all of a sudden willing to, to fight for the kinds of gun controls that would've prevented that kind of mass violence happening in their community. It's why during the pandemic, when, you know, the economy essentially stopped, everybody was engaging in mutual aid networks. I mean, I was making donuts for all my friends. You know? I was baking bread for my friends. People were dropping off pizzas for me. Like, it's... And it was, it was a barter system. Like, that level of humanity is in all of us, and when there's a shock to the system, like, we experience it and we're willing to lean into it. And I think in this moment, when we [00:47:00] offer people a positive vision of the way that our world can function with humanity at the center, with, like, support and care for each other at the center, I think there's, there's an innate desire for people to live in that world. And so I think we just have to be able to talk to people about that vision, and I think people will, will be willing to fight for it. You've mentioned, um, in person as a core part- Yeah ... of what you do, both the BroBot series, the people's assemblies, being face to face with someone to better understand their needs, to really connect with them, to be able to help them organize, being physically present in a city council meeting. There's a lot of, a lot of the examples you're giving and the kind of part of the strategy here is to, like, be physically present and in person. And I wonder if you could talk just a little bit about the role you see of, like, being eye to eye with people, being in the same physical space as we kind of move into this political moment, um, where we're trying to get more people, um, engaged. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a, it's a really critical antidote to the [00:48:00] isolation that people feel. We can talk about the many things that this particular moment in technology has brought us, but one of those things that's unequivocally there, and people talk about it often, is the, like, crisis in isolation, just how alone people feel. And, and we have technologies that essentially foster that isolation. So a really important and critical counterbalance to that is to bring people together, to, to have people experience each other. And that's why I think convenings are an incredibly important part of our kind of organizing intervention. Like, we have to not just be able to communicate online and, you know, see each other on Zoom rooms, but then be able to be in the same space breaking bread with each other. And I find that those are the moments where I feel the deepest amount of connection and build the kind of solidarity that we need that can travel beyond, you know, that moment. You know, I remember leading up to an event that we did with, um, with Karen Hao, the [00:49:00] author of Empire of AI. We had brought in some, some data center organizers from across the country, and we were having dinner the night before the event in New York City, and we were talking about What is it if we could build anything in our community, what would it be? And I remember hearing organizers in that table talk about, "I wanna build a library. I wanna build a park in the, in a neighborhood that has never had, like, a fully functioning, like, public space. I wanna build a community center because there are no third spaces that our, our young people can go to." And as a child of the '90s who, like, went to a lot of like, you know, gyms and cultural centers, and all these third spaces that were very, very critical for me to, to develop myself as a human being, knowing that we're living in a society where a lot of people don't have access to that, it's, I think, is really sad. And I think listening to people in that room, that's what they want, you know? That's what they wanna build. So I think I find that those kind of beautiful moments only happen in, in those kinds of in-person spaces. [00:50:00] So we do smaller versions of that. Like, we bring people together for regional trainings where, you know, we've done a few in the South and in the Southwest where we brought data center organizers in the region together to learn from each other, to build relationship with each other, because I think it's important for the organizer in Memphis who is fighting the Musk AI, you know, Mu- Musk e- xAI data center to be speaking to the Chicana feminist in the panhandle of Texas who is fighting, you know, Fermi Capital, uh, you know, a company that's building a data center in, in Amarillo, and sharing what they're learning about their fights. Yeah. Because that can travel more beyond, you know, that space, and, and it helps people feel like they're connected to something bigger. And, you know, we do larger gatherings like Take Back Tech, which we, we do in partnership with, uh, Mijente, which is a immigrant rights organization. Um, and the most recent one we did, we had nearly 600 organizers in a room, and we [00:51:00] had this, like, opening night keynote that featured some, some pretty heavy hitters like Naomi Klein, you know, talking about her work and, and her work in relationship to how she's assessing this moment in tech and the figures that are emerging as powerful, and she was amazing. But we followed that up with a panel on data centers, and the data center organizers got the biggest applause in this room. And in that moment, I think you can feel like you're a part of a larger movement. You can actually experience it. You can feel it- Right ... so that when you go back to your community, you know you're not alone, you know? Yeah. No, totally. Um- Okay. Well, if you're not a data center organizer that can give a barnstorming, um, panel conversation on all the amazing things you're doing, you're just a normie who's like, I don't know, thinking about how to engage in this, and you're maybe newly passionate about these things, um, is there something that you would suggest they do? Bringing people together in real life can happen [00:52:00] in large scale ways, like we do with Take Back Tech, in small scale ways with, you know, uh, regional training, and even smaller ways, going back to this, uh, philosopher and strategist Norma Wong. She says all you really need to, to set strategy is three people. Um, so yeah, the, the, the one suggestion I would say is, uh, you know, if you're... If this-- if these issues animate you, and you're curious to, like, start digging into what we can do about it, like, host a local assembly in your community with people you know. Just bring people together to start talking about how to make sense of this moment and what do we wanna do about it. Um, we have some tools on our website. People can go to robotsvspeople, um, .org, and we have a, a toolkit there to kind of walk you through how to host a people's assembly, you know. It's got a sample agenda. It's got sample outreach language. It's got everything you would need to host one of these. But also, if you, if you want some support to figure out how to make it happen, you can also fill out [00:53:00] a form there, and one of our organizers will, will meet with you and walk you through how to do that. I think that's... You know, bringing people in your community together to assess, like, what are the problems that we're seeing and, and what do we wanna fight for, like, that's a great first step. Have that conversation, and then we can build the organizing from there. A huge thank you to Steven for joining us. Be sure to check out the last episode of Media Justice's political education series, Bro Bots versus The People, on November 12th, where they'll break down what the midterms mean for our future. We'll drop a link to learn more in the show notes. Next week, we are joined by Alvaro Bedoya, a former FTC commissioner, to talk about how growing public backlash against AI is shaping politics. We'll get into what it means to be an AI populist, and how today's fight over AI fits into a much longer story of workers versus companies. Thanks to the podcast team, Kushal Dev, Marion Wellington, Van Newman, and Zoe Trout for all their work making this podcast happen every week. And we will [00:54:00] see you next time.