The New Realist Podcast

This morning President Trump took to Truth Social to announce that any community that opposes data centers wants to “end up being backwards and poor.”

While not his first public defense of AI Data Centers, it was his most vehement — as he called to “let Data Reign.”

I wrote about the politics of data centers in TNR not long ago. There is a reason that not long ago, Texas Governor Greg Abbott pivoted on this issue as hard as he did. No one has their thumb on the pulse of Texans like Abbott and it didn’t take him long to recognize that his opponent in the upcoming race, State Representative Gina Hinojosa, had latched on to an issue with legs when she started running ads accusing the Governor of rolling out the ‘red carpet for data centers’ in order to take care of his billionaire donors.

For similar reasons, in a memo obtained by Axios, the National Republican Senatorial Committee said the issue could be detrimental in Sen. Jon Husted’s (R-Ohio) upcoming election. "If he loses and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice — and they will not go near the next one. This has become a sleeper issue for the entire election cycle."

Despite this and a Gallup poll showing 71% of Americans oppose data centers in their communities, Trump has doubled down on his support.

He has frequently argued that data centers mean more jobs, higher income and lower taxes. The reality, however, is not quite that rosy. Take the issue of jobs, for instance; data centers do result in short-term construction jobs, but once the facilities are built they are largely automated requiring few permanent staff.

Likewise on taxes, in an effort to attract builders some communities have awarded the firms tax cuts, credits, and other exemptions, all of which can result in a decrease in tax revenue that has to be made up by tax payers.

Trump’s argument today, however, that communities who do not just “go with it” and accept the centers are going to find themselves “backwards” and “poor” speaks to what is driving so much of the backlash against data centers, AI, tech, and tech billionaires more broadly - the sense that there are haves and have nots in all of these conversations and the have nots need to suck it up and go along or risk being cast aside, left out, and dominated by China.

There is no question that data is not going anywhere, there will be more data tomorrow than there is today and it needs to be processed somewhere. There is also no question that these centers should be placed equitably and the burden of housing them should be equally shared across all communities, regardless of income.

Why not one or two next to Mar-a-Lago, Trump National Dolfin in Miami, or Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey? If these centers are as lucrative and appealing as claimed, why not build them in wealthy neighborhoods of those advocating for them versus disproportionately in rural and working class communities?

The New Realist is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jeannesheehanzaino.substack.com/subscribe

Today marks an inauspicious occasion for the Trump administration - 6 months since the war in Iran began. It wasn’t that long ago that the president promised the war would just be a “little excursion” and last only a matter of weeks.

To understand where we are 6 months into this war of choice, we could look at the impact on…

* U.S. military personnel (i.e, 18 service members dead, hundreds injured, the plight of sailors on the U.S.S Lincoln, more than 50,000 Americans deployed in the Middle East…)

* U.S. stockpiles (i.e., they have been severely depleted as a result of the war, according to Reuters, the Army has expended “virtually all” of its long range and surface-to-surface missiles in the war,… )

* civilian populations (i.e., as of late June, more than 7300 killed between Iran and Lebanon, and at least 27,000 Iranians have been injured…)

* our alliances (i.e., with the exception of Israel, our traditional allies have not supported the war…)

* our Gulf allies (i.e., each has faced severe security (including attacks on their air space, land, infrastructure, lost of life, etc….) and economic threats …)

* the American economy (i.e., costs of everything from gas to fertilizer have risen, according to the AAA, at the outset of the war in late February a gallon of gas cost on average $2.98, it is now over $4.00 per gallon…)

* Trump’s approval rating (i.e., only 31-7% of Americans support the war… )

* Americas status around the world (i.e., it is hard to find anyone in the world who believes the war has strengthened US power around the world, quite the contrary…)

* the cost of the war (i.e., at the end of June the administration estimated the war cost $37.5B, others have estimated the actual cost per U.S. household and overall is much higher…)

Perhaps nothing helps explain where we are 6 months into this war better than Trump’s posting to mark the occasion. Instead of speaking to any of these costs, he posted the following meme:

At first look it seemed perhaps his Truthsocial account got hacked. After all, why would he associate this war with one of the most unpopular wars in modern American history? Why would he associate it with a slogan (“Mission Accomplished”) that for most Americans evokes memories of George W. Bush’s widely discredited Iraq War? A war, by the way, that Trump ran against and denounced as emblematic of the type of ‘endless war’ he would never get us involved in.

The post doesn’t make sense from a messaging, military, diplomatic, economic, strategically, or political perspective. And maybe that is why it perfectly encapsulates where we are 6 months into the Iran war - trapped in a quagmire of Trump’s own making that is nonsensical.

The New Realist is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jeannesheehanzaino.substack.com/subscribe

A person is more likely to be struck by lightning than commit mail-in voter fraud. This was the finding of a study by the Brennan Center for Justice. An earlier study described the rate of voter fraud as “infinitesimal.” While last year, the Brookings Institution released a study showing mail voting fraud is so rare that it accounts for “only 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast” or “about four cases out of every 10 million mail votes.”

Despite this, on March 31, President Trump signed Executive Order (E.O.) #14399 “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” which imposes restrictions on mail-in balloting.

And this week, in a 6-3 unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court ruled that it was too soon to consider if the 23 state’s challenging the order had been harmed because the order itself hasn’t been carried out yet. As a result, they have not suffered the type of injury necessary to go forward with the their lawsuit.

With mail-in ballots going out next week, the three dissenters argued that the result would be “chaos” in the “November elections.” This is not the first time the Supreme Court has handed down a decision close to an election that could foment confusion at the ballot box, they did the same earlier this year when they ruled to strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

As the BC, Brookings and almost every other study has shown, there is little if any evidence of fraud in mail in voting in the U.S. Moreover, voting by mail is so common that in 2024 30% of ballots were sent by mail. Among the 1/3 of Americans who vote by mail is President Trump, who requested a mail in ballot at the end of July and submitted it in the Florida primaries just over a week ago.

Since returning to office in 2025, Trump has been looking for ways to exert control over elections - this includes flirting with putting ICE Agents and national guardsmen/women at polling sites, mid-decade redistricting, threatening with withhold state funding to states that do not abide by certain Trump approved voting rules, gutting the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), dismantling the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (DNI) Foreign Malign Influence Center, sending the DNI to Georgia to oversee seizure of voting records, sowing seeds of doubt in election results, and more. The March EO, efforts to take control of the United States Postal Service (USPS) Board of Governors and force through rule changes that forbid the postal service from delivering ballots to anyone not on the approved voter list is just another in a long line of attempts by this president to take control of US elections.

For anyone who lived through January 6, there is no question what Trump is capable of doing when he loses an election. Nor is there any question that November is shaping up to be a bad election for him and his party, which looks increasingly likely to lose the House and potentially the Senate. If either of these things happen, Americans will once again be at the mercy of the Courts to stop Trump’s efforts to challenge the results - exactly as occurred in the months following the 2020 election and J6. This is why the way in which the Supreme Court handles rulings, such as the one regarding Trump’s EO on ‘voter integrity’ matters so much.

It is also why it is important that we state clearly that all the research shows fraud in mail-in balloting is extremely rare; voting by mail is safe; and any efforts to limit it are not aimed at curbing fraud, but rather designed to achieve another goal.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jeannesheehanzaino.substack.com/subscribe

This afternoon Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced “Operation Economic Outcast” - the 5th stage in President Trump’s War of Choice with Iran.

The goal of the operation is to isolate Teheran from the financial world by punishing any countries or entities that do business with it. In an editorial in the Financial Times, Bessent labeled today “economic D-Day” - but unlike the June 6, 1944 invasion of Normandy, this D-Day was more of a warning than a surprise knock-out attack. Bessent took to the podium and, without specifying which countries or when, threatened sanctions on those who do business with Iran.

Operation Economic Outcast (OEO) marks the fifth stage in the Iran War. As with previous stages, it is yet another attempt by President Trump to find a way out of this quagmire of his own making. The air war and bombing campaign (Stage 1) failed to achieve the administration’s objectives, giving way to a naval blockade (Stage 2). As the blockade proved ineffective, they signed an MOU (Stage 3) so problematic that some described it as a surrender document. By early July it was clear that the MOU had collapsed and we were deadlocked, back in a tit-for-tat military campaign and another attempt at a blockade of the Strait (Stage 4). Today is the administration’s latest attempt to pressure Iran, this time financially (Stage 5).

* STAGE 1 - 40 DAY AIR WAR (February 28 – April 8)

* STAGE 2 - US Blockade of the Strait (April 13 – June 17)

* STAGE 3 - MOU (June 17 - early July)

* STAGE 4 - Deadlock,Tit-for-Tat, Blockade 2.0 (early July - August 23)

* STAGE 5 - Economic D-Day/OEO (August 24 - ?)

The problem the administration faces is that there is little hope this economic pressure campaign will be any more effective than the previous stages. Here are just a few reasons why:

(1) The research shows that economic sanctions can be effective at times, but this is usually when they are imposed on democratic states, by coalitions, and narrowly tailored.

(2) Sanctions are generally less effective when imposed on autocratic/tyrannical/closed regimes for broad purposes (i.e., regime change).

* Regime Type: Iran is exactly the type of regime which research and history show is unlikely to be moved by sanctions. There is something known as the “Sanctions Paradox” in autocracies and other closed systems. They not only resist coercion of this kind but use the economic and other forms of distress being inflicted on the population to consolidate power, provide resources to loyalists/elites, and blame their foreign enemies in an effort to foster a “rally-around-the-flag” effect. Case in point, Cuba.

* Nature of Sanctions: Moreover, the additional sanctions, so far as we can tell, are not narrowly tailored but broad and overwhelming, designed to cripple Iran economically and drive the nation to regime change.

(3) In imposing the sanctions, the administration appears to have 1 primary goal - regime change; and if that fails potentially a second - getting Iran back to the negotiating table. Unfortunately, sanctions are unlikely to be effective in achieving either.

* Regime Change: Economic sanctions are designed to impose mass destruction on civilian populations, so devastating that they will rise up and demand regime change. Does anyone really believe that the new, hard-line Iranian government will stand by as people rise up? After all, according to the Trump administration, in the face of the last uprising just before the war started, a less hardline Iranian regime killed thousands of its own people in brutal fashion. Moreover, it is worth remembering, this is a regime that has persisted despite being sanctioned for almost 50 years.

* Negotiations: More than 10 years ago when, after punishing sanctions, Iran came to the negotiation table and signed the JCPOA - an agreement between Teheran and a coalition of nations, including the US, which resulted in Iran curbing its nuclear ambitions in exchange for economic relief. It was President Trump, however, who killed the JCPOA during his first term. Fast forward to last summer, Iran came to the negotiation table and we bombed them. Months later they came back and in February we bombed them again. It is unlikely they will return again any time soon but, if they do, they will likely drive an even harder bargain than they did in 2014, 2025, or 2026; something more akin to what they demanded as part of the MOU which was so bad for the U.S. it fell apart before the ink was dry.

(4) It is worth remembering the devastating human toll of sanctions. Economic sanctions are designed to inflict mass suffering on civilian populations with the goal that they will be so fed up and desperate that they they will rise up and demand change in their own government. This is why the use of widespread sanctions as a weapon of war raises real humanitarian questions and concerns; both of which are compounded in a case like Iran because there is little realistic hope that if an uprising occurred as a result of the starvation and punishment heaped on the Iranian people, that they would be able to effectively revolt any time soon.

Bessent reminded the world today that the U.S. is out to destroy the Iranian regime as it is currently constituted. In short, we present an existential threat to Iran. And when a nation is under that kind of threat to its very existence they will fight to the finish. The fact that the U.S. cannot say the same helps explain why we are in the position we are in today and why the decision to enter the War in the first place was so ill-conceived.

The New Realist is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jeannesheehanzaino.substack.com/subscribe

Yesterday, the yield on the 30-year U.S. treasury bond spiked to 5.3%, the highest since the 2008 economic crash; the move was largely driven by investor concerns regarding inflation which hit 3.4% last month.

This comes amidst a cooling labor market, a slow-down in hiring, and consumer confidence numbers which have plummeted to historic lows as a result of the high costs of housing, food, gas, healthcare, travel and much more.

All of this is coupled with unsustainable government deficits and a national debt that we learned today has now topped $40 trillion and is expected to reach $50 trillion in a few years if no steps are taken to curb spending and begin paying it down. The debt news today, while not unexpected, should be a wake up call. The federal debt-to-GDP ratio has now surpassed 100%, the heaviest debt burden relative to the size of the U.S. economy we have seen since the aftermath of WW II.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which has a wonderful interactive tool where you can test your ability to ‘fix the debt,’ provides an overview of our current trajectory based on Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections from earlier this year.

* Debt will reach a record 120% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2036.

* Deficits will exceed $3 trillion by 2036.

* Spending is larger and growing faster than revenue.

* Interest costs will explode.

* Major trust funds are approaching insolvency.

Note: Brief excerpt from the CRFB projections.

Where is President Trump on all of this? After all, he ran promising to make the economy ‘great again.’

This morning he was giving reporters a tour of the new helipad on the South Lawn, droning on about the newly completed White House driveway made of white granite quarried in California, and waxing poetical about the White House lawn while praising Scotts Miracle-Gro for donating sod and topsoil.

Well at least someone is making out in this economy. After Trump’s shoutout, shares for Scotts Miracle-Gro, which also happens to be one of the president’s donors, increased by 6.2%.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jeannesheehanzaino.substack.com/subscribe

After Trump traveled to Austin to appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast in October 2024 (Episode #2219) for a 3 hour sit-down interview, Rogan endorsed him. Since then, however, their bromance has hit some hurdles with Rogan critiquing the president for everything from the Iran War and ICE tactics, to his handling of the Epstein files, the White House Wall of Shame, and his grotesque statements on the death of Rob Reiner.

Rogan’s latest break with Trump concerns the president’s continuing and blatant schemes to monetize on his position via his family’s crypto venture and his social media company.

On a recent episode of his podcast, Rogan appeared to learn live on the air about Trump’s plan to sell access to his Truth Social posts. Trump owns 41% of the Media & Technology Group, the company which launched this ‘cash grab’ on August 1. For $100,000 a month, subscribers to ‘Truth API’ are granted early access to “market-moving” posts from Trump.

It was Rogan’s guest, comedian Shane Gillis, who told him about Truth API on Episode #2539:

Gillis: “He’s selling faster access to his Tweets, and then you can bet on the markets. It’s literally insider trading.”

Rogan: “Wait a minute, is that real? You can get access to a tweet before he makes it, and then you can bet on that Tweet? How is that legal?… Who is telling him this is a good idea? You know how crazy that is? $100,000 to get early Tweets? That’s literally crazy…. Oh my god, $100,000 each month. Not even $100,000 a year. Each month. For early access to ‘market-moving’ posts from Trump and other people who use the platform. Can you imagine you charge $1.2 million per year? He’s just on a [cash] grab.”

Rogan not only called it a blatant ‘cash grab’ but questioned the legality of Truth API. In the immortal words of Michael Kinsley, however, it “the scandal isn’t what’s illegal; the scandal is what’s legal.”*

This is insider training done out in the open. Those individuals and corporations willing to pay are being granted access to Trump’s Truth Social posts ahead of the public. Even before the launch of Truth API, Trump used Truth Social to move markets on issues from tariffs and military strikes, to the Strait of Hormuz, and the appointments of White House and executive branch personnel. With this new scheme, however, those willing to pay $100k per month will have early access to information that, regardless of its veracity, moves markets; we have already seen this in the case of the oil markets which have responded to Trump’s statements regarding the Iran war.

Why is this dangerous? There is one main reason we have a thriving stock market in the U.S.; it is because people believe, for the most part, that if they take a chance and invest in it, they have as fair a chance of getting a return as anyone else. This is why there is one key rule that undergirds all modern security law, no one person or group should be able to get and trade on information before anyone else.

If we, as a country, destroy belief in the fairness of the market, people will not be willing to invest in it and all the budding entrepreneurs out there who have been responsible for innovating our economy will not be able to raise the money they need to grow their ideas.

Trump has a long history of trying to monetize on his office. Just consider that in the last year alone he made 22,000 stock trades - compared to Biden who made just 13 in four years.

Public officials should not be allowed to trade on the market while they are in office; nor should they be able to sell access to information meant for the American public to the highest bidder. While it may not have been necessary to legislate against this type of behavior in the past on the understanding the public would not tolerate it and anyone doing it would suffer the consequences at the ballot box, that no longer appears to be the case.

*Note: On the questionable legality of Truth API, last week 2 media outlets filed a law suit in a federal court in New York arguing the scheme violates the 1st Amendment’s right to equal public access and the 5th Amendment’s right against preferential access.

The New Realist is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jeannesheehanzaino.substack.com/subscribe

Social security is 91 years old today and it’s almost insolvent. That’s just one of a number of bad pieces of economic news that have dominated the headlines today.

You wouldn’t know it listening to the president, however. As we discussed on Bloomberg, instead of talking about the future of social security or the economy, he is headed to Long Island NY to focus on crime.

Why talk about crime now? The fact is, he can’t talk about his usual go-to issue at these moments, immigration, because he is under water on it. Nor can he talk about the economy unless he is prepared to take responsibility for the bad news flowing out and as usual, he isn’t. Just consider a few of the big stories from the last 24-48 hours:

* University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment rating showed that consumer sentiment dropped in August to rates lower than we saw during either the 2008 economic crisis or at the height of COVID. These are stark and alarming numbers. To make matters worse, with less than three months to go until the Midterm, the largest drop in the sentiment index - nearly 10 points - came from Republicans.

* Likewise, the retail sales numbers weren’t much better, dropping .6% in July.

* All of this came on top of news that the US has sold 30-year bonds at highest borrowing costs since 2001 - a result of years of inflation and a mounting deficit. The US is now carrying a $40T national debt, a number that is bigger than the economy itself, something that has not happened in American history, outside of WWII.

To make matters worse, today is the 91st birthday of Social Security. 91 years ago today, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. For all the program has done to help so many elderly Americans, however, it is unclear whether it will be around much longer. As Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Government notes, there is every reason to be concerned about the future of Social Security:

“As policymakers blow out the candles on Social Security’s 91st birthday, they are doing far too little to ensure its continued longevity. Social Security won’t make it past age 97 as things currently stand – at least not in its current form. The best birthday gift we could give Social Security is a solvency package, so Social Security’s 70 million beneficiaries and 237 million contributors know they’ll be able to count on benefits, going forward.

Social Security is deep in deficit, and once its trust fund is depleted, under the law, it cannot pay more in benefits than it generates in revenue. In just six years, beneficiaries will face an abrupt 22% benefit cut – the equivalent of a roughly $500 cut in monthly benefits per beneficiary. That’s more than what the average retired household spends on groceries each month…”

Consumer sentiment, retail sales, US bonds, the enormous deficit, and the potential insolvency of social security, not to mention the unpopular war, higher gas prices, questionable tariff and immigration policies, etc. are the backdrop against which Trump’s approval ratings have plummeted. According to Nate Silver they are now averaging 38%, the lowest of his second term and the lowest of any president at this point in his second term since Harry Truman. This is driven in large part by Trump’s plummeting approval ratings on the economy; numbers which have gotten so low recently that for the first time in a decade more voters said they trust Democrats to manage the economy than Republicans.

Given this, when he goes to Long Island today Trump should be both acknowledging the economic pain people are feeling and talking about his plans to rectify the situation going forward. If the past is prologue, however, he is unlikely to say anything of the sort. Instead, he will likely continue to be off message as he was at a rally the other day when he told voters “we may have to send oil prices higher amid the Iran War.” And it’s not just Trump, it’s his entire team. Just consider that the Treasury, Secretary Scott Bessent, announced during a recent interview that he is “sick of hearing about this K-shaped economy” - shorthand for the wide income gap. Instead he argued that lower end wage earners are doing better - something which the numbers clearly don’t support.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jeannesheehanzaino.substack.com/subscribe

The map below is c/o Erin Brockovich’s AI Data Center Reporting web site. It displays the more than 9,000 locations across the country where people have emailed to express concern about data centers in their communities.

We discussed the wide-ranging politics of AI data centers on Bloomberg today. It is an issue that has quickly become one of the most concerning to people across the country, regardless of party.

This is in part because it is a proxy for anger people feel about the disruptive role of technology, tech companies, and tech titans in our lives. But that is only part of the story. Other parts are reflected in the talking points I put together in advance of this conversation and which I hope provide additional context about this issue.

* How does the public feel? A recent Gallup poll found 71% of Americans oppose constructing AI data centers in their local areas. As Gallup notes, of those 71% “nearly half, 48%, who are strongly opposed…. these results, from a March 2-18 Gallup survey, represent the first time Gallup has asked about data center construction, a topic that has met fierce opposition from local residents in many parts of the country.”

* What is driving opposition? Opposition to data centers is driven by an enormous number of factors, including concern they may be a massive drain on local resources from water and energy to the electrical grid, that they could result in rising electricity bills, create environmental and noise pollution, and diminish the quality of lives for people in the local area, among many other factors

* How much has been invested in building and by who? The 5 largest “hyperscalers” driving cloud and AI infrastructure are Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Oracle; from 2025 to this year they are on track to spend approximately $1T on AI infrastructure

* Case 1 - The Stratos Project: There have been several cases of communities rising up recently to oppose construction. Here is but one of many examples - this one in opposition to the construction of a data center on the shores of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Here is an excerpt from one report published about the Stratos Project that appeared in Truthhout in late May.

“Plans for a celebrity-backed “hyperscale” data center in rural Utah, so massive that it would consume more than double the state’s current electricity use, have generated an intense public and political backlash…

The project, brought by “Shark Tank” TV personality Kevin O’Leary, would span 40,000 acres, demand 9 gigawatts of power once completed, and raise the state’s carbon emissions by 64 percent, according to estimates.

… News of the proposed data complex, dubbed the Stratos Project, became public in April after the three commissioners of Box Elder County, the mostly agricultural community that would host it, approved the project. They pointed to the project’s approval by more powerful state agencies and asserted that stopping it was out of their hands, while refusing to hear comments from more than 1,000 people who showed up to share their concerns. Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, has since walked back some of his full-throated support.”

* Case 2 - Meta’s Hyperion: Another case that has drawn widespread attention is Meta’s $50B Hyperion AI data center in Richland Parish Louisiana. As reported in the New York Times, that deal was characterized by a lack of transparency, Nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) that were signed with 77% of state senators, massive tax breaks, power and grid agreements, and so forth. This is not unique to this case. Across the country citizens have been largely left out of the process, much of which has been conducted quietly, in secret, and behind closed doors.

* Where is the Trump administration on this? In July 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order (EO) 14318 titled “Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure.” At the same time, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced it was opening federal lands to build large AI data centers. And just a few weeks ago, the DOE said it would redevelop parts of a Cold War-era uranium enrichment facility in Paducah, Ky., to host a large new A.I. data center campus.

* What is the response at the state and local level? In mid-July, NY Governor Kathy Hochul enacted the nation’s first statewide one-year moratorium on new hyperscale data centers. Less than a month later, Texas followed suit. At the local level, some reports are that there are now more than 500 data center bans in towns and counties across the US. As Tech Brew reports, “the bans have been growing exponentially—the number jumped from 300 in late June to over 500 in July.”

The New Realist is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jeannesheehanzaino.substack.com/subscribe

There are primaries in 6 states today: Alabama, Connecticut, Minnesota, South Carolina, Vermont, and Wisconsin. We spoke about several of the most-important races on Bloomberg earlier.

Two key questions to ask as results come in.

DO TRUMP’S ENDORSEMENTS STILL HOLD WEIGHT?

Trump endorsed candidates in two key races going on today. First, he offered his support for Mike Lindell (AKA the “My Pillow Guy”) in the Republican primary for Governor of Minnesota. Second, he endorsed Darline Graham, sister of Lindsey Graham, in the contest to be the Republican nominee for Senator in South Carolina. Unlike most politicians, Trumps endorsements usually have less to do with electability than loyalty, and we see that in the Minnesota race in particular.

While Graham likely has a leg up in the South Carolina race, she’s got some strong competition and the contest will almost certainly go to a run-off. If it does, it will be interesting to see if Trump does what he did in the state’s last primary run-off for Governor when he hedged his bets by endorsing two candidates (Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and her opponent, Attorney General Alan Wilson).

Regardless of who emerges from these primaries, Minnesota will be as tough of a state for the GOP to win in November as South Carolina (AKA ‘Trumpistan’) will be for Democrats.

WHAT TO MAKE OF THE INTRA-PARTY SQUABBLING AMONGST DEMOCRATS?

Once again, several races on the Democratic side today feature a progressive/DSA-style versus a more moderate/establishment-type candidate. This is true in the primary to succeed Senator Tina Smith in Minnesota, as well as the battle for Governor in Wisconsin. The latter race is one of the most talked about in the cycle because it pits progressive State Assemblywoman Francesca Hong (most known today for her views on Thanksgiving) against Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley (who was in the race, then out of the race, and now back in it, with the support of the outgoing Democratic Governor).

This is not new, it has been the story of the primaries on the Democratic side for the entire season as progressives have vied with establishment candidates in states from Maine and New York to Michigan and Wisconsin. Hong has a tougher road in some ways than Abdul El-Sayed given that unlike the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s Senate seat, she has not secured endorsements from well-known progressives such as Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; nor has she been raising or spending the amount of money her opponents have - a fact underscored by some of the data we are seeing regarding media/advertising spending in the race.

Consider the following from WisPolitics (excerpt, bold added):

* Francesca Hong hasn’t spent a dime on traditional TV buys over the course of her campaign…Hong has spent $300,598 on anything related to paid media…

It’s a stark contrast to others in the field…

* Tom Tiffany (GOP nominee) for example, has reported $7.6 million in media expenses…

* David Crowley has reported $572,317 in media expenses.

Regardless of whether Hong is able to pull out a victory tonight, what is clear is that establishment Democrats have to do a much better job motivating their primary voters. There are several reasons that progressive challengers have performed fairly well this cycle, here’s two.

First, they are sick of being told that they have to go against their gut and support a candidate they like less because he/she is ‘electable.’ After all, if they were so electable, why haven’t they been able to clear the field in a party primary, particularly when they have most of the money, support, name recognition, etc? In short ‘electability’ arguments (even when they are true) may not be enough to motivate a base that a is fed up, angry at the party, frustrated with the establishment and hungry for someone new and bold.

Second, what Hong said about Thanksgiving is as silly as what Hassan Piker (the left-wing influencer who campaigned with El-Sayed) said about 911 is offensive. Both have disavowed these statements, but that is almost beside the point. During the Trump era, many Democratic primary voters have a hard time believing past statements like these will really signal the death knell of their favored candidates’ campaigns.

This is particularly true in a case like Hong who, if she wins, will run against Tiffany; and while she may have been venting about Thanksgiving several years ago, it’s not nearly as critical to the lives of the people of their state as what he has been doing, which includes: trying to overturn the 2020 election, objecting to Wisconsin's electors, arguing the 2020 election was stolen, supporting the Trump administration sending people to Cecot Prison in El Salvador, arguing for more ICE funding, and supporting Trump’s power to invoke the Insurrection Act, among many other things.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jeannesheehanzaino.substack.com/subscribe

Today, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word essay entitled “The Future is for Everyone: The Path to a Positive AI Future.” You can read it here or read the summary. Zuckerberg writes in part that, “[t]he notion AI is so dangerous that the only safe path ​is an extreme concentration of power seems inherently problematic.” It is worth noting the letter comes just as Meta’s new AI model, Muse Glimmer, is being released.

Zuckerberg’s manifesto was met with a sharp response from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I -VT) who, in a letter to Zuckerberg, Sam Altman (CEO of Open AI) and Dario Amodei (CEO of Anthropic) urged a “pause” or moratorium on “AI development.” As Sanders writes:

“Almost every day, there is a new story about how your companies are losing control of the AI technology you are developing, with potentially cataclysmic results.

This week we learned, frighteningly, that AI has been used for the first time ever to create new viruses. As you know this type of development, in the wrong hands, could lead to new bioweapons that result in the deaths of tens of millions of people.

Last month, the world found out OpenAI lost control of an AI model. The result? The model hacked into another company’s computers—a clear violation of federal law. After conducting internal reviews, Anthropic and Meta reported their models similarly escaped their control. One of the targeted companies called the AI hack ‘an unprecedented event”’that deserves an ‘unprecedented response.’ Yoshua Bengio, the most cited living scientist in the world, said these incidents ‘should serve as a wake-up call.’”

Likewise, a group of House Democrats wrote a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson requesting that these same CEOs be called to testify before Congress.

The concerns regarding AI include its impact on jobs and the economy, fear it could ‘go rogue,’ is unsafe, could be used to build bio- and other dangerous weapons, and is a drain on limited resources such as water and electricity, among other things. This is why the conversations and potential government regulation being called for are so important; we need dialogue, education, and research on the impact of AI in order to make a sound decision concerning regulation - we need this even if it means slowing down development for a period of time.

Let’s take job displacement for example. I asked AI about job loss due to - well itself - AI - and this is what it said in part (bold added):

Major financial and economic organizations predict that between 85 million and 300 million jobs globally are at risk of elimination or significant displacement due to AI. [1, 2]…

· Goldman Sachs: Predicts that AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs globally. Their research notes that roughly two-thirds of current jobs in the U.S. and Europe face some degree of AI automation, with up to a quarter of all current work tasks capable of being completely automated. [1]…

PwC: Projects that by the mid-2030s, up to 30% of existing jobs could be automated, initially impacting clerical and administrative functions heavily before shifting to manual tasks as physical automation scales.

It’s unclear still what the impact of AI on jobs will be and for all the displacement, we may see new jobs created as well. Even if that is the case, however, it takes time to develop methods and procedures for reeducating and transitioning millions of workers in a new economy. While Zuckerberg spoke of jobs in his letter, urging us all to be optimistic about the abundance of jobs we are likely to see in the future, he failed to mention that not long ago, Meta itself cut 10% of its workforce; cuts the company said were driven by its pivot to AI. In May 2026 the company laid off approximately 8,000 people writing in an email the reduction was tied to “AI native design principles.” This was just months after the company cut approximately 600 jobs from its own AI division.

Sanders call for caution here, which precedes Zuckerberg’s letter by months at least is worth paying attention to. In that spirit, a video he released several months ago briefly detailing his concerns and ending with a call for a moratorium on data centers (one since embraced by states and localities, including the state of New York).

Thanks for reading The New Realist! This post is public so feel free to share it.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jeannesheehanzaino.substack.com/subscribe