The Heartland Finishes Harvest Wondering What Trump Will Do Next

Donald Trump barely had time to start a war, not end another war, and figure out just how he could rename something else before the midterm elections came along and knocked the GOP right out of the ring. But the Democrats’ successes were barely celebrated when a frothing frenzy over the president’s lack of political manners took center stage. He should have seen it coming, but this scenario did not seem to even cross his mind. Heartlanders may have completely turned the corner on support back in August when Trump wrote on Truth Social: “[T]he only reason that communities throughout the USA should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor.”

Multiple factors brought on the midterm loss, but the biggest issue was probably the broken promise of no new wars. But with that perfidy, the election results were no surprise to the “backwards and poor.”

Of Course They Did

It’s not free, and it’s not something that Trump could fix, but just the same, voters gave Democrats control over Georgia’s utility regulator on Tuesday. Georgians protested with big signs against their electric bill, which is about 34% lower than the national average. But that did not matter, no-siree. The bills were still too high. Standard bills frequently range from $175 to $300 or more for average-sized single-family homes.

Tim Carrender had a virtual hold my beer moment and said: “My power bill in Texas last month was $885.”

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Some may scoff at worrying over this win in the Peach State, but remember it is all tied to data centers. Democrats Shelia Edwards and Peter Hubbard won, giving the party a 3-2 Georgia Public Service Commission majority, its first in decades, with a plan to drop those already not-that-high prices.

H. Sterling Burnett, director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at the free-market Heartland Institute, told the Daily Caller: “Democrats got smart; they stopped talking about climate change. What did they talk about? Affordability. And the Republicans, I think, made the same claims, but the problem is the Republicans were in power while the prices were high, so people didn’t trust them.”

In Michigan, Marty Menna warned: “Dems will fix that with rolling blackouts.”

But consider this: According to EnergySage, “Over 25 years, Georgia residents will pay about $72,900 for electricity. In all-electric homes, that number could be a lot higher.”  

Uh oh. Does the EV car have dibs over the E-bike at the home charging station this week?

“Super Intelligence” Did Not See This Coming

Another big loser in the Midterm Maelstrom is your friendly AI data center. Across the country, data centers are running into tougher battles over electricity demand, grid capacity, water use, and the higher utility bills residents fear they will bring. As regulators and voters demand that these projects pay more of their share, and always in someone else’s backyard, the economics of expanding the nation’s data-center network could become a lot less attractive.

Ten states considered 41 local ballot measures related to data centers on Election Day. And it didn’t go Donald Trump’s way. Ohio alone proposed 11 charter amendments restricting data centers. You had to see Election Day 2026 coming, right? 

“Just smoke screens and mirror [sic] when it comes to moving forward with DATA Center[;] government will move in and declare Eminent domain over the land for the data centers,” Michael Dowd in Aiken, SC, warned

OpenAI promised to stop striking secret deals with local officials’ days after voters rejected data centers at the polls. Might work. But the newly minted governor-elect of Texas, Gina Hinojosa, who had stingy words before the election against data centers, has now softened her language.

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Gina told CNN this week: “I’m not ruling data centers out. It’s not that I hate data centers. We just need to stop what we are doing until we have protections for Texans.”

Well, that wasn’t the first time a politician’s story has changed after Election Day, and it won’t be the last.

ICYMI

Maybe it’s a case of being really angry, really lazy, or just plain going all in on the youth vote – but Arizonans just elected Sebastian Matta, a 19-year-old student at Arizona State University, for Superior Court clerk.

American employers added 165,000 jobs in October, exceeding economists’ expectations. Shh, it’s a secret.

Trump says goodbye to his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who might be relieved, but America hopes to be in the capable hands of the new guy, Stephen Miller.

And folks From the Back Forty wish Liberty Nation News Senior Political Analyst - and co-founder - Tim Donner a very happy birthday this weekend.

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Editor's Note: From the Back Forty is Liberty Nation's longest running and most popular weekly column.