Demonstrators protest a data center in Tucson, Arizona, in May 2026. | Mamta Popat/Arizona Daily Star via Getty Images On its surface, the national revolt against data centers seems simple: They are a nuisance, and people do not want them in their proverbial backyards. But I haven’t been able to let go of the idea that there must be something much deeper driving the backlash against them, and few other subjects have confounded me more than trying to figure out what to think about it. These fa