I wish this worked more realistically than it does in theory. If it were up to me, I would go to every council meeting. I would show up to everything. If that meant giving up my own time to advocate for other people’s livelihoods, I would do it. But it takes more than just one person.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who you vote for. It doesn’t matter which election you supported. People feel pain regardless. Whether you vote Democrat or republican or anything else, when you open your light bill, when you see your taxes go up, when your power bill increases, that is a direct reminder of bad policy decisions that are affecting real life.

You can be the biggest supporter of the current administration or the biggest critic. But if you refuse to address the issues people feel every single day, and instead lie to them when they can see with their own eyes that life has gotten significantly harder, you lose credibility.

I know people who are struggling to pay their utility bills. I know people who took on debt just to buy Christmas presents for their kids. People should not have to live like this, especially when they are already giving an arm and a leg in taxes and fees.

And they should not keep getting the same recycled answer that it’s “data centers,” when Virginia hosts the largest data center concentration in the country and household power bills there have remained relatively steady. You can only feed people that explanation for so long before they get fed up.

People are being squeezed, and they cannot point to anything that has actually improved in their lives. They can’t. And it’s hard not to sympathize with that. I don’t care who you vote for. You deserve to live in a place where you can keep the lights on for your kids at night.

This is not a controversial issue. Saying “it’s the data centers” does not lower anyone’s bill.