California data center war takes vile turn as racist slurs fly at powerful union

Carpenters showing up to build something and getting called slurs for it. That's the story here, and it deserves more attention than it's getting. These are union tradesmen, the kind of people California politicians claim to champion every election cycle, and they're the ones catching racist and homophobic abuse from protesters who supposedly care about their community.

There's something telling about who ends up on which side of these data center fights. The people organizing against construction are rarely the ones who'd lose a paycheck if the project stalls out. The carpenters union isn't some corporate front group. It represents guys who show up, do the work, and get paid when buildings actually go up. When the opposition to a project starts screaming slurs at tradesmen instead of making an argument about water use or grid capacity, that tells you the argument ran out a while ago.

We've written before about how the AI boom is forcing an honest reckoning in blue states between climate promises and economic reality. Data centers are ugly, they're thirsty, they strain the grid. Fair fights over all of that are legitimate and worth having in public hearings, not through slurs hurled at guys wearing tool belts. If the loudest voices against these projects can't manage basic decency toward working people, they've forfeited the credibility to lecture anyone about what California's future should look like.

None of this means every data center deserves a rubber stamp. Communities have real standing to push back on siting, water contracts, and permitting shortcuts. But the carpenters didn't design the project. They're just trying to build it and get paid. Targeting them with racist garbage isn't activism. It's just ugly behavior looking for a cause to hide behind.