Picture this: Your grandfather's rotary phone trying to run TikTok while powered by a coal furnace in the basement. Welcome to Trump's 2025 AI strategy—a master class in putting lipstick on a steam engine and calling it innovation.
The latest MAGA cognitive dissonance reached peak absurdity this week when Steve Bannon warned on his "War Room" podcast about mass unemployment from AI, particularly among entry-level people under 30, while simultaneously cheering on an administration that's literally signing executive orders to power AI data centers with coal. It's like watching someone complain about getting wet while standing in the rain they created.
Trump's January 23 Executive Order eliminating Biden's AI policies reads like a teenager's manifesto against parental supervision. The entire document is relatively light on specific policy directives and heavy on performative chest-thumping about "sustaining and enhancing America's global AI dominance." Yet when pressed for actual substance, we get... what exactly? A 180-day deadline to figure it out later.
Meanwhile, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warns that AI could eliminate millions of entry-level white-collar jobs, and the administration's response is essentially: "Hold my Diet Coke, watch this!" The cognitive dissonance is so profound it makes flat-earthers look logically consistent.
The real tell? Trump's April executive order directing agencies to identify regions with suitable coal-powered infrastructure for AI data centers. This isn't forward-thinking tech policy—it's political theater with a side of environmental nihilism. Even Amazon executives won't commit to using coal, mostly dodging the question when asked about Trump's coal-powered AI dreams.
The administration's coal fetish for AI reveals everything wrong with this approach. Coal is considered the dirtiest fossil fuel and historically the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, yet Trump repeatedly refers to "beautiful clean coal" like he's describing a unicorn that also doubles as a cryptocurrency.
Here's what's actually happening: The fuel share in the US energy mix has fallen to around 15 percent, compared with 2001 levels where it generated 51 percent. Solar power has become a cheaper alternative to coal, with 99 percent of existing US coal plants more expensive to run than new solar or wind power. But facts have never been Trump's strong suit.
The administration is essentially asking Silicon Valley to build the future on yesterday's energy infrastructure. It's like demanding Formula 1 cars run on whale oil—technically possible, environmentally catastrophic, and economically insane.
The MAGA-tech merger is among the most important shifts of the past year, with tech CEOs getting unprecedented access to Trump's inner circle. But what are we actually getting from this bromance? Policy by press release and governance by Twitter poll.
The RFI resulted in 8,755 submitted comments for the AI Action Plan, yet we're still waiting for anything resembling a coherent strategy. It's June 2025, and the most concrete policy is "let's burn more coal for computers." Revolutionary.
The cruel irony is that Charlie Kirk predicted AI job displacement will be a major issue in the 2028 campaign, while simultaneously supporting an administration that treats AI policy like a reality TV show. MAGA's base—the very working-class Americans who elected Trump—are about to get steamrolled by automation, and the administration's response is essentially "thoughts and prayers, but make it coal-powered."
Here's the uncomfortable truth: This administration has absolutely no substantive AI roadmap. The 2025 AI Executive Order is relatively light on specific policy directives and instead directs officials to develop an action plan within 180 days. We're five months in, and the biggest AI innovation from this White House is figuring out how to make ChatGPT run on nineteenth-century energy.
The UN warns that AI could affect 40% of jobs worldwide, while Amodei predicts unemployment could spike to 10-20% in the next one to five years. The administration's response? Republican lawmakers dismiss the need for new federal programs to support displaced workers, because apparently bootstraps work better when they're coal-powered.
This isn't governance—it's performance art masquerading as policy. We're watching an administration that campaigned on protecting American workers actively ignore the biggest threat to American jobs since the Industrial Revolution, all while pretending that burning more fossil fuels equals technological progress.
The MAGA AI strategy isn't low-tech or high-tech—it's no-tech wrapped in flag-waving rhetoric and sold to the highest bidder. When the automation wave hits and millions of jobs disappear, don't say we didn't warn you. We'll be too busy trying to run our iPhones on coal to notice.
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Writing Team : May 30, 2025 8:00:00 AM
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