"can only be good" - you can't imagine ways in which they at least could be bad?

Depends on who you’re talking about. How does the cost benefit analysis work out for someone while lives within a mile of a datacenter, owns no shares in the company, and pays rate fees for their utilities and will have to pay for maintenance for the increased load capacity as well as higher spot prices? If you view America as a cohesive unit I’d agree with you, but I don’t think these people are necessarily acting irrationally if you view their personal circumstance. It’s up to the building company to sweeten the deal and provide an incentive for the locals to add it. Based on the contracts I’ve read from many of these datacenters it seems more like they’re buying the pockets of corrupt politicians and developers in areas with high political inequality while conferring very little benefit to the people who deal with the externalized cost.

Good for the construction companies, the billion dollar corporations, and the whole 4 people needed to run each one.

Not once instance of these datacenters has proven to be beneficial for the communities and economies they're located in.

I remember when building more fiber could only be good. An awful lot of it sits in the ground lost, never used because it was the wrong type or in the wrong spots, or otherwise pointless waste.

Further, electicity price hikes seems like a bad prospect when inflation is already rampant. If you want a datacenter, offer your house for the space instead.

beginning? the end of empire became obvious with the election of trump, but probably started with missteps in the 80s