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Vote strategically.

Democrats aren't by default better on this issue vs republicans so you need to be more involved than just voting in the general.

If you are in a D leaning district, then register as a D and vote in the D primary. Make sure the candidate you vote for is the most likely to win who isn't captured by big business.

A good example of a datacenter friendly dem that just won by the skin of their teeth is Crowley for governor in Wisconson.

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We need ranked choice like yesterday. It's not a magic fix-it solution, but it is a giant step in the right direction. I'm so tired of the whiplash between these two parties.
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> Democrats aren't by default better on this issue vs republicans so you need to be more involved than just voting in the general.

The only thing that matters is Democrats gaining control of Congress and state governments. The choice that isn't a democrat is the wrong one. The time to vote out an incumbent was the primary.

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> The time to vote out an incumbent was the primary.

I agree, that's why I'm saying you should be involved in the primary and not just the general. Because, as I said, it's not the default position of the democrat party to be for regulating datacenters. I gave an explicit example of that where a dem is completely aligned with the republicans on DCs.

Dems win power, but they are still beholden to OpenAI, then they'll be no better than the republicans on this issue.

It's too late for 2026 and IMO you should vote for Ds wherever you are at. But if you want to affect change on DCs then voting in the primary for anti-dc dems is what you have to do. It's not enough to just vote in the general elections.

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You're not wrong, but you are muddying the waters. The sides are clear and bringing up primaries when it's too late is irrelevant.

> they'll be no better than the republicans on this issue.

There is no reason to think this is true. I will eat a gas generator if a Democrat president orders his EPA administrator to break established rules and precedent like the current one is doing.

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> You're not wrong, but you are muddying the waters.

No I'm not. We can walk and chew gum. It's important to recognize when and how Dems fail and this is one case where more than a few are failing their voters.

> There is no reason to think this is true.

There is if people aren't involved. A Gavin Newsom president would absolutely be pretty happy to receive campaign funding from AI firms.

> I will eat a gas generator if a Democrat president orders his EPA administrator to break established rules and precedent like the current one is doing.

Break the rules, no that's unlikely. However, it's entirely possible that the same results and rubber-stamping happens with enough campaign contributions. You need to look no further than all the money that's been dumped into "clean coal" and "CO2 capture" boondoggles by democrats to understand how this sort of thing works.

I could completely see a democrat president allowing DCs to be built so long as they buy carbon offsets, which is every bit as corrupt as just telling the EPA to not regulate. It's simply just not as brazen.

But I don't think this is true of any or all democrat presidential candidates, just some. Specifically Newsom would very much pull this sort of shit.

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We usually have had less than 30% participation for the local Democratic primary in off years (Republican primary in off-years is not much better). The complete lack of civic-mindedness is why the only strategy that works at the general election is "vote for the lesser evil." Note: that only include 2 viable candidates, a third party will never win the Presidential election without elimination of the parties themselves or implementation of rank-choice voting by a majority of states to counteract the anti-democratic (that's small "d") bias of the Electoral College.
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If you still trust anyone just because they claim to be a Democrat, you haven't been paying enough attention.
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That's not my claim.

Republicans just took a vocal public oath of loyalty to their President in which they promised to cheat in the the election. That happened. It's on video.

My claim is that you should vote for the other party. That sounds reasonable to me.

I voted in the primary against the incumbent. The incumbent won. I will vote for them because the Republican opponent is a documented sexual predator. That is literally true.

These are the "two sides" we are dealing with.

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It's even worse: Trump literally just promised during his midterm convention to pay everyone $5,000 should the Republicans win the midterms.

Note that this promise is itself illegal. It is a violation of 18 USC 597.

See: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=title%3A18+section%3...

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That interpretation seems... odd. You seem to be implying that if your policy is to give everyone a tax credit (i.e. give them money) if you win then you're not allowed to tell anyone about it.
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No.

He literally says he'll cut a check for $5,000 for every adult american if the Republicans win both the House and Senate in the midterms.

You don't have to take my word for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4NphZBfmnE

He's also stated that he can issue the money without help from Congress, which directly contradicts the idea that it's harmless bloviating about voting in a 120th Congress to implement specific policy:

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbLXAdvZcro&t=40s

... though that distinction shouldn't really matter.

The payout is very much a quid pro quo bribe for voters. No additional interpretation of his words is necessary: he's said it very directly himself.

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The people that treat political parties like sports teams are awful and a big part of why we're where we are today, but with the current state of affairs and the choice being between essentially fascism (Republicans) and 1990s conservatism (Democrats), it's not a hard choice. I couldn't agree more with what I think you're implying though, which is that this is a shit state of affairs where we're constantly voting for the lesser of two evils. We need ranked choice and open primaries, imo.
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> Elections have consequences. Vote democrat in November and again in 2028. When someone tells you both sides are the same tell them no, it's only Republicans that are allowing Datacenters to sidestep the law in order to poison us more efficiently.

It's not that simple. The Democrats are shit, and lost to Trump twice because of that shittiness. Perversely, Trump has allowed them to convince themselves that they don't have to reform.

I don't expect anything to change if the Democrats gain power, they'll curb only the most egregious abuses curbed a bit, while leaving the overall thing intact. Then they'll lose again because they're shit.

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So vote for Republicans because while the outcomes are worse, at least they aren't pretending they are going to make things better?

You've made it clear why you think people absolutely shouldn't vote for Democrats, but haven't really stated what people should do instead, just left the implication.

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> So vote for Republicans because while the outcomes are worse, at least they aren't pretending they are going to make things better?

No, voting for Democrats isn't enough, because they're shit. They'll probably in better shape to be reformed that Republicans, but that's not saying much. I don't have a ton of hope based on what I'm seeing. I expect they'll either go back to the behaviors that enabled Trump, or commit some anti-democratic power grab more extreme than anything Trump has ever done.

IMHO, after someone like Trump, they need to reform themselves to be an actual-majority party that can competitive almost everywhere.

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