A widely despised industry is slurping up Americans’ water — and driving up their electricity bills — as part of a nefarious plot to take their jobs. Voters are begging for their political leaders to take a stand against these accursed corporations. Yet the Democratic Party can’t decide whose side it’s on.

Or so some Democratic operatives and commentators suggest.

This week, Politico published a report titled, “Americans hate AI. Which party will benefit?” In it, a diverse array of Democratic lawmakers and political professionals call on their party to be, in Politico’s words, “proudly, loudly, without reservations, anti-AI.”

Their case is simple: AI development is deeply unpopular. Voters are alarmed by the data center construction spree, fearing that it’s driving up energy costs and despoiling the environment. And they’re worried that AI is going to put them out of work.

The Trump administration is too wedded to the tech industry to speak to this anti-chatbot fervor, the operatives reason. Democrats therefore have an opportunity to claim ownership of a winning issue — one that unites a broad, populist coalition of both blue-collar and white-collar workers.

To effectively do so, however,........

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