Big Tech is about data politics. Time to bone up on it.

Tressie McMillan Cottom, Want to Fight Back Against Big Tech? Start Here. NYTimes, August 3, 2026. She begins:

In June, I wrote about how the data center revolts happening across the country get to the heart of our greatest political problems. Artificial intelligence is not just a market product or a scientific achievement. It is a political theory. And it is gobbling up our democracy.

The challenge this presents to a functioning democracy is immense. Democrats cannot just “win the midterms” and go back to life before Donald Trump and his army of tech bros upended our way of life. We can talk about reforming the Supreme Court, ending the filibuster, enshrining women’s autonomy in the Constitution and getting money out of elections. But those things won’t matter if we don’t change our laws and norms about what I am calling data politics.

All of the speculation and hype around A.I. is hiding the fact that the technology isn’t just large language models or agents or data centers. It is the backbone of a superstructure that merges regressive politics with unchecked economic power in the guise of technological innovation. Put simply, there is too much money, some of it too untraceable, giving a small group of unelected people too much power over the people. That’s data politics.

Data politics is the right’s answer to what’s next after Trump: more Trumpism, without the man who gave away the country’s store for personal gain. What should the left’s answer be?

She then goes on to list a bunch of books people should read.