“They're telling us that we need to be afraid of China, but we're becoming them.” | Lori Merriman

This is the second part of my interview with Lori Merriman who is leading the opposition against building a hyperscale data center in a small town in Missouri, half an hour to the south of St. Louis.

In case you prefer listening to the interview on Spotify or Apple Podcasts:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0v6NNYKYajATU4YsVbkDo5

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theyre-telling-us-that-we-need-to-be-afraid-of-china/id1863496846?i=1000784410241

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“People seem to have forgotten what this country was founded for,” Merriman said during our interview. “We’re becoming China. They’re telling us that we need to be afraid of China, but we’re becoming them because of these [data centers].”

Trump is telling Americans to just accept the gigantic data centers being built and that fighting them is impossible. Instead, he recently said, data centers will make American communities rich and, if you don’t take “all that money,” then someone else will.

He made these remarks on July 23rd, 2026, at a White House event where he announced that an additional 200 companies signed the “Ratepayer Protection Pledge,” a voluntary pledge by businesses to protect communities from increases in electricity costs due to the massive energy demands of hyperscale data centers.

The pledge is just that: a pledge, voluntary and unenforceable. Its purpose clearly is to calm the waters and lull Americans into thinking that somehow, miraculously so, the voracious electricity appetites of these massive data centers will in no way impact electricity prices. No word from him where the electricity for the data centers will come from; no word from him who will pay for the electricity; no word from him what the data centers will be used for.

This is what Trump said during this Ratepayer Protection event:

“You have to convince your community how great these things [are]. You can’t fight it.

“You have to go with it, and you’re going to have all that protection, and we’re giving you automatic protection.

“But you’re going to make a tremendous amount of money. You’re going to reduce taxes, and you’re going to have something that if you don’t have it, everybody else wants it.

“So these are the smartest people, most of you, most of you in this room.

“We have a couple probably on the other side of things. They disagree, but I don’t know how they can disagree. Your community and your state’s going to become rich, and there’s very little disruption. And again, if you don’t take all that money, somebody else is going to take it.”

The “smartest” people according to Trump apparently are the people who shut up, go along, take the money and get rich.

Here is Merriman’s response to Trump’s words that there is no point opposing the building of data centers and that Americans must go along:

“This is the state of the nation that we're living in right now. I didn't know that we were in a tyranny. I mean, that's what this country was founded against, a king.”

Recently, WIRED published an article about more than 1,000 FOIA’d documents from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and so-called “fusion centers” (local intelligence hubs).

Apparently, a new classification is being applied to people who oppose and protest data centers in their towns: they are labelled “anti-tech violent extremists” and their crime is “anti-tech violent extremism.”1

Obviously, Americans protesting against massive data centers in their small towns in the Midwest are not at all “anti-tech violent extremists.” They have computers and smartphones, they use Facebook and WhatsApp like anyone else. Merriman says:

“I’m not against technology, but I’m against where these [data centers] are going, the size of them, in residential areas and surroundings.”

What are these massive new data centers actually for? To “win the AI race against China?” As if the “AI race” were something that will soundly and forever be “won” by one country.

Huge numbers of gigantic hyperscale data centers are simply not needed to be able to do what we’re already doing because, for that, we don’t need them. Merriman commented:

“I keep seeing comments on Facebook against our group saying: ‘Well, Stop using your cell phone then and stop watching a movie on Netflix.’

“But we've been doing that just fine without these. We don't need hyper-scale data centers for those. You can put a data center in a small building [for that].”

No, the purpose of the hyperscale data centers is not to post on Facebook and and to stream movies. It’s something entirely different.

The purpose is to control the population: to flock the herd with appropriately named Flock cameras, to surveil Americans every step of the way and around the clock. Recording their whereabouts, their activities, their every word, their financial transactions and their biometrics.

But for which purpose? Most likely to keep the population in check: docile, subdued and fearful. To prevent the formation of substantial protest movements. To ensure that there will never ever be any kind of serious uprising against the ever smaller and ever wealthier elite.

Another objective, as the so-called Pandemic has shown, is depopulation of non-elite citizens via shortening their life spans through a host of manipulative, addicting and also coercive methods that, for best results, require the most intimate knowledge about individual people.

It looks like China’s social credit system will pale in comparison to the one that America seems to be in the process of creating. Merriman says:

“Prevailing everything that we’re doing, they’re gonna put a social credit score on us. So everybody’s gonna be able to see everything we’re doing.

“And you know what happened to this country of being free because there’s no freedom in that. We’re becoming China. They’re telling us that we need to be afraid of China, but we’re becoming them because of these [data centers].”

China apparently has a much small number of data centers compared to America’s and uses a different approach to AI with distributed AI and open source models instead of centralized and closed AI systems.

But there’s a second reason we’re becoming China: it’s because there are millions, probably billions of electronic components made in China that are used in America’s many thousands of data centers (and, of course, not only there but in countless computers and American infrastructure). It’s little wonder since such an overwhelming number of these components are manufactured in China.

And despite the occasional protestation by government officials and even Trump himself, this is apparently okay and acceptable. Perhaps China isn’t so much America’s arch enemy and more a convenient boogeyman to keep American citizens in line?

And, by the way, didn’t Trump say multiple times during his last meeting with President Xi what a great friend he is?

So far during his second term, Trump issued three executive orders that classify data centers as “critical national security infrastructure.” Indeed: national security infrastructure stuffed full with Chinese surveillance technology. That makes sense, doesn’t it?

In July 2025, an Executive Order titled “Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure” defines data centers with at least a 100 megawatt load and a value of at least $500 billion in capital expenditure as “protecting national security.” Such data centers obtain privileges in the form of expedited federal permitting processes and land use.

The data center in Festus that Merriman is organizing against has $6 billion of capital expenditures and a 1,000 megawatt load - and this data center is a lot smaller than some of the really gargantuan ones planned and already built in Missouri and elsewhere in the US.

The Executive Order might explain why not one environmental study was done in Festus before the construction contract was signed. Merriman told me during the interview that the location for the Festus data center is in a floodplain:

Cornelia: “In a floodplain! I can’t imagine that they would get the environmental approval to build such a thing in a floodplain.”

Lori Merriman: “Well, they haven’t even done any of that yet. They haven’t done any of that research. None of it. So the contract was signed, everything was done without any environmental studies whatsoever.”

Cornelia: “Isn’t that unusual?”

Lori Merriman: “I would think so, and we’ve been asking for this. Why don’t you do the due diligence first and then figure out the project?”

In April of 2026, a follow-up Executive Order expanded the concept of “national security infrastructure” to additional entities: transmission lines, substations, natural gas/nuclear/geothermal power and semiconductors.

Then, in June, an Executive Order named “Promoting Advanced Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Security” pronounced artificial intelligence capability overall as a national security matter and ordered the Attorney General to prioritize prosecution and punishment of “AI misuse” - whatever that is.

Does that mean then that Americans protesting against or organizing protests against hyperscale data centers are not only classified as “anti-tech extremists” but are also regarded as potential domestic terrorists whose criminal prosecution will be prioritized?

Currently, three separate lawsuits are being litigated in Festus. Two lawsuits were brought by Festus’ citizens against the city. One lawsuit was brought by the Festus’ city council against Jefferson County for approving a recall election in Festus.

First, there is Lori Merriman’s lawsuit brought through her LLC “Wake Up JeffCo” (Wake Up Jefferson County) against Clayco’s real estate subsidiary CRG, the data center’s developer, for violating sunshine laws and improper rezoning.

This main lawsuit has been crawling along for some time now and is apparently being slow walked through ever more delay tactics by the defendants. The lawsuit has been in the discovery stage for a while but the defendants have not provided a single discovery document yet:

Lori Merriman: “They’re only picking things that they want to give us versus what they have to give us. And I don’t know how to prove that other than through discovery. And they have not provided any discovery documents yet.

“We had a a court hearing last Friday, which the case has been continued to September 18th, because the judge ordered all the attorneys to communicate better, which I don’t know what that means, but that’s what she said.

“I was there in the courtroom for the hearing, and it was pretty much a waste of time, in my opinion, because nothing was accomplished. So we have to go back on September 18th.”

Cornelia: “So what what was the purpose of this hearing on Friday?

Lori Merriman: “Well, our attorney filed a motion for declaratory judgment and the hearing was granted because they had not filed any discovery. They’re completely like way past their time for discovery. They haven’t answered any of the interrogatories.

“So he filed the declaratory judgment motion, which was postponed. It was denied at the time, but it now it’s been postponed for a final answer on September 18th.”

During that hearing, Merriman says, six attorney were present in total: five belonged to the side that wants to build the data center - and just one was on the side of the towns’ residents. The city had two attorneys there and CRG had come with three attorneys in tow. Want to guess who’s going to win that lawsuit?

It’s hard for the citizens of Festus who oppose the data center to raise the money they need to finance the lawsuit. And she points out that Festus’ residents are paying twice: they pay for the city’s lawyers through their taxes and then need to raise money to pay for their own lawyer to fight the city’s lawyers:

“We’ll just keep doing what we have to do and keep raising money.

“The whole thing costs us a lot of money and at this point the citizens are paying twice. We’re paying for our own lawsuit and we’re also paying for the city to be defended in this lawsuit.”

The second lawsuit is brought by Festus’ citizens over the city’s refusal to hold a county-approved recall election. Just as with the first lawsuit, this lawsuit is also being dragged out by the defendants to win time:

“So the city filed for a change of judge, which they can do apparently one time without any kind of reasoning.

“They did that, a new judge was assigned, and now she has recused herself as a conflict of interest from that [lawsuit]. So we’re now waiting for another judge to be assigned in that.

“So it’s just more delay tactics.”

And since there is a shortage of judges in Jefferson county, it will presumably be quite a while until a new judge will become available.

Merriman comments with regards to the various lawsuits:

“But there’s just a lot that’s is so intertwined… and there’s so much corruption in the backside of this between the city, the county, the states, even federally, that is just insane.

The best way to help Festus’ citizens in their battle against the data center, Merriman says, is by direct deposit to her LLC’s account at First State Community Bank. Or you can donate via GoFundMe or Venmo. Donations are used to pay for the legal costs of the lawsuit against CRG and the city council to prevent the construction of the Festus data center.