- Filibuster
- A Senate procedure requiring 60 votes to end debate and proceed to a vote, effectively giving the minority party a check on majority power.
- K-shaped economy
- A post-recession recovery where upper-income groups (those with assets) recover and thrive while lower-income groups stagnate or decline, creating a diverging 'K' shape.
- TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome)
- A pejorative term for the political tendency to reflexively oppose anything associated with Trump, regardless of its actual merits.
- Dark money
- Political spending by nonprofit organizations that are not required to disclose their donors, making the true source of funding opaque.
- War Powers Act
- A 1973 US law requiring the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and limiting unauthorized deployments to 60 days.
- Permitting reform
- Legislative changes to streamline the federal process of approving energy and infrastructure projects, which currently can take years or decades.
- Invest in America accounts
- A proposed policy mechanism allowing wealthy individuals to direct private capital into opportunity-building accounts for lower-income Americans, bypassing government administration.
- Luddite
- Originally 19th-century textile workers who destroyed machinery; now used broadly for anyone who opposes or fears new technology. Fetterman used it to describe Democrats who want to block AI development.
- Moratorium
- A temporary prohibition on a specific activity; here used to describe proposed Democratic legislation that would pause construction of new data centers.
- Fracking (hydraulic fracturing)
- A drilling technique that injects high-pressure fluid into rock formations to extract oil and natural gas; central to Pennsylvania's shale energy industry.
- Gigawatt (GW)
- A unit of electrical power equal to one billion watts; used here to describe the scale of power generation at large energy and data center projects.
- Closed-loop water system
- A cooling system that continuously recirculates the same water rather than consuming fresh water; used in data centers to address community concerns about water use.
- Covenant
- A formal agreement or set of commitments; McCormick used it to describe the clear set of community benefits data center developers should promise to local governments.
- Quaint
- Attractively unusual or old-fashioned; used by Fetterman to suggest current campaign spending figures will look laughably small compared to future races.
- Munged
- Confused, mixed up, or corrupted; McCormick used it to describe how the broad concept of AI is being conflated with the specific issue of data centers in public debate.
- Chassis
- The underlying structural framework; used metaphorically by Fetterman to describe the foundational AI infrastructure that either America or China will build and control.
- Pipefitters / Steamfitters
- Skilled trade workers who install, maintain, and repair pipe systems for gas, steam, and liquid; mentioned as blue-collar union members who crossed party lines to vote for both senators.
- Rank and file
- The ordinary members of an organization, as distinct from its leadership; used to describe union workers who voted differently from their union leadership's endorsements.
