The AI Shock and American Democracy: Labor Displacement, Political Geography, and the Redistribution of Democratic Power

Drawing on the China Shock framework—which documented how trade-induced manufacturing job losses affected communities and fueled populism—the project argues that AI deployment constitutes a second, potentially larger disruption with three distinguishing features: it targets white-collar and professional workers; it concentrates in coastal and metropolitan areas rather than the industrial heartland; and its physical infrastructure (data centers) imposes environmental burdens on rural communities that receive few of the economic gains. The project asks whether the political preferences of displaced migrants persist or change after relocation, how rural communities hosting data centers understand their place in the AI economy, and how AI-driven migration will redistribute political power through the 2030 census reapportionment.