Meet the MAGA darling mobilizing Americans against Big AI

• Amy Kremer is chair of Humans First, a nonprofit pushing an "America First" approach to AI.
• Humans First is hosting a nationwide protest against data centers on July 18.
• Kremer was also a key organizer of the January 6 rally in 2021.

Amy Kremer has worn many hats.

She's been a flight attendant. She's participated in the Republican National Committee. She's a Women for Trump and Women for America First cofounder. And she was a "Stop the Steal" supporter.

Perhaps most notably, she was one of the primary organizers of the January 6 rally for President Donald Trump in 2021, which spiraled into a riot at the US Capitol. She did not plan or participate in that part.

Also a former Tea Party member, she has been at the center of many of the most recognizable conservative movements of the past 17 years.

Now she's rallying Americans against a new cause: Big AI.

"I think this is the most important fight of our lifetime," Kremer told Business Insider. "This technology could wipe us off the face of the planet."

Kremer is now the chair of Humans First, a nonprofit working to give Americans a greater voice in AI policy. The group, founded earlier this year, is organizing a nationwide protest against AI data centers on July 18. So far, the group has planned demonstrations in 22 US states, including 11 in Texas and seven in Florida.

"We're doing this because the people of this country are rising up and saying, 'We don't want these hyperscale data centers in our communities," she said.

The anti-data center movement

AI needs data centers like humans need oxygen. Companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta require ever-increasing compute to train and operate their products. That compute is generated by the servers and processors housed in data centers.

Without these massive data centers, advancements in artificial intelligence could stall, threatening bottom lines and investor tolerance. It would also benefit China, the United States' biggest competitor in the race to dominate the AI industry.

For these reasons and more, many industrial-minded Americans support the rapid construction of hyperscale data centers. Beyond their necessity to run the AI race, supporters say they encourage economic growth in the communities where they are built and create jobs for locals.

"Data centers are vital to enabling emerging technologies like AI, which are critical to US national security and global economic competitiveness," Josh Levi, president of the Data Center Coalition, an association that supports the data center industry, said in a statement last year.

Locals, however, worry that the data centers powering AI will raise their electricity bills, worsen the environment, and generally degrade the quality of life in the rural communities where they are typically built.

Many of them also just don't like AI. Although data centers aren't new, the massive versions needed to make AI work have become, for many Americans, the tangible symbol of their dislike for the technology.

It's proving to be a bipartisan issue. Data centers are uniting Americans across blue and red states like few other issues, and they are expected to play a role in the coming midterm elections. A Gallup poll published in May found that over 70% of surveyed Americans don't want a data center in their backyard.

Over 1,400 data centers had already been built or approved for construction by the end of 2025, with hundreds more in the works. Many towns and cities have paused construction of data centers. Some have outright banned them entirely. Democratic Reps. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have called for a federal moratorium.

While Kremer shares their concerns, she doesn't share their strategy.

"We do not believe in a nationwide moratorium or even a statewide moratorium. We believe that each community should have a choice in what they put in their community," Kremer said. "And that's not happening in a lot of places. It's being done behind closed doors."

How data centers became her next target

Kremer said data centers first came to her attention in 2024, when videos of communities opposing their development began spreading on social media.

"I am not a techie, so I didn't realize the connection to data centers and AI at the time," she said. "I learned that the data centers are the backbone and infrastructure of AI."

She also learned that parents had accused AI chatbots of contributing to teen suicides, and that lawsuits had accused OpenAI's ChatGPT of having a role in a shooting. Bleak forecasts that AI could take over traditional human jobs weren't comforting either.

"This technology has been built on American data with American taxpayer dollars invested into these companies with American energy and American land," Kremer said. "We have no voice in how the technology is used or how it impacts our lives, and that's not right."

Kremer said she isn't anti-tech, but agrees with Americans who want to implement guardrails around frontier AI systems. She also believes data center developers and local governments should be transparent with residents about the full parameters of each project, and give residents a real chance to weigh in.

"The reality is these companies have more money than God," Kremer said.

"I guarantee you that when Republicans are no longer controlling all the chambers, they're going to be cozying up to the Democrats because, at the end of the day, all they care about is power and control," she added.

Kremer said she also blames the federal government, though not Trump, who has made supporting America's AI ambitions a central part of his agenda. His administration accelerated federal permitting and backed the Stargate Project, a $500 billion effort to build huge data centers to power AI. In May, Trump delayed signing an executive order on AI guardrails over fears of falling behind China. His administration, however, did just briefly table Anthropic's latest models, Mythos and Fable, over security concerns.

"It's Congress's responsibility, and they need to get their act together and listen to and protect the American people," she said. "President Trump's executive orders, and his most recent executive order on testing frontier AI systems, need to go further."

Until then, however, Kremer said she'd be among those leading the charge.

"I'm a parent," she said. "I know no parent anywhere that would ever say, 'My child's in danger. I'm going to wait on Congress to act.'"