Trump's home county votes itself backwards and poor for one year

…(cont) August thirty-first. The president posts that the only reason communities throughout the USA should not want data centers is if they want to be "backwards and poor." His words, not mine. The story underneath says the opposition is nationwide, and that it's about pollution and utility bills going up.

September second. The Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, is on CNBC, and somebody asks how politicians in both parties are handling voter outrage. He laughs. One of his favorite things, he says, is when people talk about data centers using water. And two lines up in the same story, there he is on the record earlier saying data centers suck water. Same subject, same man, and the word he lands on for the concern is propaganda.

September sixteenth. Loudoun County, Virginia — the story says it boasts the highest concentration of data centers in the country, so these are people who know what one looks like from the road. The board votes seven to one to one, directs staff to draft a pause on new applications. Twelve months.

September eighteenth, two days later. The Hill runs a piece saying forever chemicals could be another data center impact, that data centers can use them, and that the proliferation is the part people are starting to look into. That one I read twice, and I still only know what it says.

Eight days after that — September twenty-sixth, ten days after Loudoun — Palm Beach County passes a moratorium on new data centers. Environmental impact. Noise pollution. Rising electric bills. One year. And the headline's first three words are "Trump's home county."

Now I apologize, because I'm going to bring in my car, and my car is not important. My fan belt's been squealing since spring. I take it down to the corner garage and the fellow tells me it's a noise, noises are free, drive it, come back when it breaks. Fine by me, I'm cheap. Two weeks later I stop in for a wiper blade and his own car is up on the lift with a new belt going on it.

He didn't lie to me. He gave me one piece of advice out the front and kept a different one for the bay in back. So when I'm lying there at one in the morning, the thing I'm turning over is the geography of it. Palm Beach County paused on noise, environment, and the electric bill. The county with the highest concentration and the county with the president's house in it — did either of them ask for less time than the other, or did they arrive at the same number from opposite ends of the driveway?

Excuse me. You've got your hand on the door and I'm sorry, one thing and I'll let you go, it'll bother me otherwise. If a community that turns these down is backwards and poor — and that's his phrase, I only wrote down what's there — then the commissioners in his own home county voted on the twenty-sixth to be exactly that, and I'd like to be sure I have the duration right, because the duration is the whole of what I've got. How long does the pause in Palm Beach County run? It's here. One year.