On Thursday evening, a dimly lit Brooklyn warehouse filled with media types, techies, and policy advocates to discuss a midterm election. The event, hosted by Newsreel founder Jack Brewster, aimed to get people to put their phones away and talk about the election five days out.
The room was already full
Brewster secured a lineup featuring Kenneth Schlenker, co-founder of Opal, and Aryan Ranjan, creator of Baraza. Schlenker discussed the state of attention, while Ranjan offered a midterm forecast. The moderator for the evening was a tech reporter tasked with leading a panel on data centers.
AI and data centers became the main topic
As the night progressed, conversation shifted away from the election to artificial intelligence, data centers, and growing backlash against technocracy. A recent report from Data Center Watch found that almost $200 billion in projects were delayed, stalled, or blocked in the first half of 2026 due to political and community opposition.
States including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, New York, and Virginia are considering guardrails and transparency around rapid development. Hundreds of new data centers are planned in Virginia alone, a state already nicknamed the “data center capital of the world.”
A council member’s perspective
New York City Council member Chi Ossé spoke in a fireside chat before the panel. He noted he does not really use AI. Ossé, who described himself as a democratic socialist but a “law and order” one, said he would like to see tech executives held more accountable and trillionaires like Elon Musk taxed more. When CEOs talk about a technology that could deplete 10% of human civilization, he said they should be called to testify in front of Congress.
Resistance from the crowd
The panel featured Maia Woluchem, a technology and human rights researcher, and Hilary Flint, an environmental and public health advocate. When asked who was pro-AI data center, the crowd booed. People expressed anger that big tech companies appear to cut secret deals with local officials to build billion-dollar facilities. In some cases, zoning rules make it unclear what is being built until it is too late to protest.
Residents feel they have lost control over their communities while struggling with the cost of living. They worry about environmental and health risks. The panel agreed that data centers are the physical embodiment of people’s fears and anger toward the tech class and the rapid pace of technology.
“What is a life worth?” Flint said when I brought up the benefits that some communities have seen from data center build-outs. People still protest, she said, because they “value their lives a little bit more than a temporary check.”
Unions and the American Dream
The next panel featured NewsNation host Batya Ungar-Sargon, political strategist Morris Katz, and Vox’s Astead Herndon. They were supposed to discuss the future of the Democratic Party. Instead, the conversation shifted to data centers.
Ungar-Sargon noted that some labor unions support data centers because of the jobs they promise. Reports show that data centers create many jobs initially, but those jobs are not permanent once construction ends. She recalled that there used to be pride in the Rust Belt about very ugly, enormous buildings because everybody worked there. They knew that building represented prosperity for themselves, stability for their children, and a future and a piece of the American dream.
Astead Herndon noted that Vivek Ramaswamy was booed for making a similar point in Ohio, a Rust Belt state. “I just want to reinforce the lack of consent happening,” he said. “Because that’s true among Republicans in those places and I’ve watched it.” Morris Katz was also skeptical. “It’s the same people who have taken so many union jobs away,” he said. “The same institutional powers that have robbed labor and working people of jobs and profit. Now coming back to essentially finish the job and take whatever scraps remain.”
Questions on the walls
Along the warehouse walls, sticky notes answered posted questions, including “Will we ever be able to get Big Money out of politics?” One note read, “God, I hope so.”
What it means for creators and workers
When the panels ended, techno music began to play. People rushed the bar and broke into small groups where AI and data centers were once again the topic in private conversations. Jack Brewster noted it came up in every conversation onstage and was the second-most common topic in RSVP questions. He said AI has become an election issue for regular voters. In rural communities, the backlash is about feeling replaced. In a place like Brooklyn, it is more about who gets rich from it.
Before leaving, attendees were asked to name the craziest thing they had seen in tech this year. Two tech founders mentioned the AI assistant startup Instinct. A non-tech person named Sam Altman. Another non-tech person brought up the rise of deepfakes and AI art. She said AI art is starting to signal cheapness. That may be why luxury brands are going the other way: Prada’s holiday campaign features hand-drawn illustrations, and Hermès has been spotlighting artists’ handmade work on Instagram.
On the way out, a software engineer said the craziest thing she saw was a person who painted their nails orange for Halloween and was asked if it was a tribute to the Anthropic IPO. She later told me data centers are popping up in her Southern California hometown, too. She grew up in a Chinese immigrant community where neighbors put signs in their yards showing dragons choking a data center. The signs have since been translated into other languages.
