Trump country is looking to an unlikely hero in its fight against data centers: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In a new documentary from More Perfect Union, the 36-year-old congresswoman left her New York City home and journeyed to a deep Trump stronghold in Georgia, where residents say a Meta data center is poisoning the water.
“If there’s a chance that anything can be done, I feel like she is going to be the one to do it,” said Beverly Morris, a Donald Trump supporter from Morgan County, where the president received over 70 percent of the vote in 2024.
“We need her,” Morris added, standing next to her husband outside their home.
A short walk from Beverly and her husband Jeff’s quaint home in rural Georgia, Meta began constructing a 2.5 million-square-foot data center in 2018. The Morrises and their neighbors allege they have not had clean water from their wells since then.
“It’s gotten worse,” Beverly told Ocasio-Cortez, handing her a muddied jar filled with brown liquid.
Meta has denied that its center contaminated the water at all.
“We’ve seen this playbook before from big companies,” Ocasio-Cortez told Beverly. “But the only thing that’s changed was that spot opening up across the street, right? Nothing else.”
Ocasio-Cortez went further, telling the Morrises that the data center—a windowless space housing the hardware and software that enable the internet and AI to function—warrants a congressional inquiry.
A Meta spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast.
“One of the reasons why I certainly wanted to come out here is because when you’re stuck in Washington, and these issues come up, you get a bunch of lobbyists that come down, and they tell you that it’s all fake,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “They tell you that the water issues are actually not that serious, and they say…this stuff is kind of like an urban legend.”
But, Ocasio-Cortez said, what she saw was undeniable.
“This is the first time I’ve heard anyone come forward and say we need to stop this,” Beverly said.
Jeff Morris told More Perfect Union that the Democratic Socialist wasn’t what he expected her to be.
“It was a good surprise. I mean, I think it went real well. I feel like she, she cares about our situation,” he said.
The far-left Ocasio-Cortez has long served as an unlikely bridge between some members of the left and right. In 2024, she earned almost 70 percent of her constituents’ votes—despite roughly 40 percent of them also voting for Trump.
When she questioned her followers on X about the unlikely split-ticket voting in 2024, several users said she and Trump were both anti-establishment outsiders.
“I feel you are both outsiders compared to the rest of DC, and less ‘establishment,’” said one. Another wrote that “both of you push boundaries and force growth,” according to The Guardian. And another: “It’s real simple … Trump and you care for the working class.”
The president, however, has yet to comment on the ramifications of data centers for residents in counties that voted overwhelmingly for him. (The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.)
On the contrary, he’s championed them, with his administration looking to loosen regulations around building even more facilities.
