Bribery of a lawmaker used to be a straightforward retail transaction between the special interest briber and a specific bribee. But the Silicon Valley billionaires now invading rural America with hundreds of their exploitative AI data centers are out to buy state lawmakers in bulk.

Instead of slipping cash-filled envelopes to individual politicos, tech giants like Amazon, Meta and OpenAI, are putting up hundreds of millions of dollars in this spring's midterm elections to pay for the campaigns of candidates who pledge to back their intrusive, water-sucking, energy-wasting AI schemes. For example, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, has two super-PACs doling out $65 million to state and local politicians who will oppose any regulation of sprawling data centers he wants to impose on rural Texas and Illinois.

Why such a barrage of corporate money in local legislative races? Because the countryside is aflame with fury that arrogant, avaricious AI profiteers think they're entitled to walk over local communities — so these locals are demanding that their legislators regulate or even ban AI data centers.

Unable (or unwilling) to win political support honestly, the corporate giants intend to overpower the democratic will of the people by effectively bribing submissive legislators with campaign cash — or by funding opponents for lawmakers who refuse to be bought.

Of course, bribers and bribees alike will piously pretend that the corporate ruse of buying government policy by buying legislative seats is technically not a bribe. But hello — rigging the system so billionaire donors can crush local democracy is not a "technicality." If it looks, smells and has the impact of a bribe ... it is one.