The racism and classism of peoples' casino/hotel preferences

 So...one of the reasons I stopped posting this past week as much is I went to Atlantic City. I did a metric crapton of research before this and i decided Resorts was the best place to go for me. Normally, I go on vacation down south, but my parents are older now and don't want to travel as far. We normally go to places like Myrtle Beach, Pigeon Forge, or Savannah, so I figured, okay, let's go to the hotel with a Margaritaville in it! We like Margaritaville, right? Also, it was affordable AF. Like, we've always been the scroungers and savers, where we tend to find the cheapest way to do something. It's not that we really cut on actual quality of life when we go. I mean, if we wanted we could sleep in like a Motel 6 with like a 2 star rating and have a horrible experience, but we try to find the best way to do things that's still reasonably affordable. Resorts ticked those boxes between it being clean, affordable, and having reasonably priced food. 

But if you go online, a lot of people HATE resorts for some reason. It baffles me. If the hotel is clean and reasonably priced, what's the problem? Most people seem to push staying in like Borgata, Ocean, or Hard Rock instead. But...those places are a lot more money, and while if you are a high roller, they're a bit nicer, they're just not what we're looking for. Researching what people say about resorts i get complaints like not liking the people who go there, there being "thugs" hanging around the entrance to the casino, the services being limited, and it feeling like living in a shopping mall. Now, as I'll get to later, maybe in this article or the next, AC does have a homeless problem. The city is half resort and half...ghetto, let me put it that way. I'll do a sociological analysis on it later and give my thoughts on it from that perspective. But still, I did my due diligence and researched further, even watching a guy walk through the casino, stay in the rooms, and it's a pretty decent casino. Maybe not the best or flashiest, but definitely not bad either. I mean, I won't name names but I've watched the guy go through other casinos that flat out have a "dead mall" vibe and feel more like a casino from the fallout universe. This doesn't for the most part. I guess the art deco style can fit that retro style fallout has at times, but it's not like run down. It's just not super fancy. 

Funny thing is, my parents also talked about staying where we're staying and their friends were like OH YOU DONT WANNA STAY THERE, WHY DONT YOU STAY IN THE BORGATA? Because 1) it's more money, 2) the room is smaller, 3) its isolated from the boardwalk, and 4), it doesn't have anything that we actually want that we can't get elsewhere?

Anyway, we stayed there, mostly had a good experience. A few minor gripes, but I'm under the impression I could or would run into any of the issues I had in ANY other casino. No, there were no "thugs" hanging by the boardwalk, if anything, after sitting there drinking a drink while watching people come in, I noticed something. A lot of black people go on vacation here. Why? Probably the same reasons, it's affordable. You dont wanna waste a lot of money for minimal gain and you wanna stretch the cash you have as far as it will go, so you go to the affordable place. Are these people who are apparent Borgata/Ocean/Hard Rock fanboys just racist against black people? You decide, but I get the impression some of what they're saying is code for "we want to go somewhere that keeps out the riffraff", ya know, like they're oh so superior. Ya know how when a black dude goes into a mostly white neighborhood people start screaming the neighborhood is going downhill and start moving out, creating a self fulfilling loop that causes the place to start going downhill as all the money and jobs disappear and things become increasingly ghetto? Yeah, that seems to be how these guys sound to me. When these guys start saying the casino is "ghetto", that seems to be what people are saying. 

Also, a lot of it just seems to be putting on airs. Like, Ive never been in the economic class where we've gone to fancy places where we overspent and then we basically brag and virtue signal about how wealthy we are and how we can afford it. But a lot of people DO do that stuff. And I never went for it. I look at resorts and compared to other hotel experiences I've had over the years, it WAS relatively upscale. I mean, when I was down south, we used to talk about wishing about how we could afford to stay IN like, the margaritaville hotel, and here...we basically did that. And it was NICE. Again, we didn't do anything too crazy, and I guess if you want upscale, resorts isn't for you, but hey, it was a solid experience coming from my lower middle class background and the accommodations I'm used to. And honestly? I'll be blunt, it didnt cost much more than staying in a ratty motel 6 style hotel honestly. That's the real kicker. Like...any place that's affordable and clean...this was like...what, $20 more a night? And sure I could stay cheaper but then we'd be cutting WAY down on quality to the point that we'd have roaches and bedbugs in the room and we...dont...want...that...

 Idk. It's just amusing watching how this pans out and what people say about this stuff, and what THEY seem to accustomed to. Yes yes yes, if you wanna spend 2x the money I did to stay in the fanciest places with the fanciest food, go for it, but I don't want that. I'm basic. And some people hate basic, but given my tastes, basic is FINE. As we'll get to in the next article, I'm not really that hardcore on vacationing anyway given some of my political views, since I don't like the idea of people being forced to serve me and me having to pay them for the "privilege" of doing so. You can kinda get that impression from previous articles I've written, like that one I did on food service a while back. I just go because my parents like going, and I'll go with them. 

And yeah, just a few other topics worth mentioning:

The hotel has a very strict policy against actual "thugs" and homeless. They dont let people stay or sleep in their cars in the garages. They dont let people use the bathrooms to change. There's no place to sit unless you're actively gambling or eating anything. ALL of these casinos in atlantic city are strict about that sort of thing to keep the actual riffraff out. If anything, the strictness actually works against legitimate consumers. Just a few examples:

 1) Due to all of the walking I did carrying in my own stuff (which was made needlessly difficult because they wanna incentivize us to pay people to do it for us, because that's what upper class people normally do), and then walking around the boardwalk all day on my first day, my feet were KILLING ME the rest of the trip. Like, I was in pain walking. And these casinos, while nice to walk through and look at, have no place to sit unless you go to the food court to eat something, or to a spot where youre gambling. Unlike places down south, there's no place to actually sit, because they dont want people to just sit and exist. The place exists for you to spend money. If you're not actively consuming, they dont want you there. This had a negative impact of making whatever issues with my feet WORSE during my stay, even though I was a legit consumer with a hotel room. 

2) So...the bathrooms dont want you changing clothes. Okay, dont want homeless people washing up or changing in there, i get it. But let's take this example. On the way out, when we were about to go home, a family member messed up their clothes and had to change. We were literally minutes from checking out. We couldnt use any casino floor bathroom to do this due to the policies against it, we had to go back up to the room to do so. And if we checked out, well then, we ARE screwed aren't we? You mean, we, legit consumers who just spent the past several nights in your rooms and ate every day in your dining establishments, couldnt just go to the bathroom to change our clothes to make sure that we were driving home in clean clothes? I understand why the policies exist, but you understand how this can sometimes make things harder for actual paying customers, right?

3) I know others who have gone to AC where one person goes there because they like to gamble and their spouses, boyfriends, what have you, prefer to stay in the car. Of course, security doesnt want people staying in the car...because that's what homeless people do. Some of them live in their car, park in the garages, and then sleep there. So...again, if youre not actively gambling, they dont want you there, even if you or someone else in your party is a legitimate paying consumer. 

Again, for all of the talk about how resorts is lax because "thugs" hang out around it, it seems to me like they're so strict with anti homeless policies that I actually kinda found it alienating as a paying consumer who had a reason to be there. but I digress. It really is a matter of perspective. Upper class people complain about this crap because omg i dont wanna share a casino with those poors! And here I am being more lower class and if anything I'm like, yeah this is too strict. Dont get me wrong, I understand homeless people in the casino could pose a possible security threat to actual customers, but yeah. It's just a pretty hostile way to go about solving the problem. As always nuance exists, and sometimes blanket policies aren't the best ways to address it. 

Another final topic I wanna talk about in regard to this is the food court. I LOVED the food court. Because one thing I realized in helping to budget for this trip was the biggest, most egregious expense is the food. Most casinos push for upscale dining experiences where you're paying $30 for pasta dishes that should cost $15, or $65-100 for steaks that should cost like $30, etc. And again, it just seems pretentious and has the whole putting in airs thing. like oh, WE'RE the ELITE dining experience. We are pushing LUXURY. Meanwhile all I see it paying twice as much for something I could get elsewhere. Solution? Resorts has an excellent food court full of cheap, affordable dining options. We could get a cheese pizza for like $20, so not much worse than home, burger meals for like $18 that puts fast food to shame, etc. Sure, you arent getting the "luxury" experience, but meh...you can get that upstairs in the fancy places. We dont want fancy, we want affordable. Maybe this is where the "shopping mall" comparisons come from. I know all AC casinos have food courts, but checking out hard rock, it did seem a bit more expensive, and looking online, other casinos had places closer to like, that hard rock style experience with theirs. Like fancier, flashier, but a bit more money. With me, food is food, as long as it tastes good I aint gonna complain. And the food tasted plenty good. The pizza (assuming you get whole pies) was fresh and stringy. The burgers were fresh and of good texture, definitely beats burger king or mcdonalds while costing about the same as them these days. I seriously dont think those places realize they were so successful because they put out mediocre food for cheap. Even I won't settle for THAT stuff on vacation. I guess I had to settle for dunkin for doughnuts in the morning, but that's like a northern thing. For some reason us northerners REALLY like dunkin, even though I find them mediocre as hell. I'm on team krispy kreme all the way but it's hard to find those north of the mason dixon line (yeah i know philly has a couple places with them but most dont). And sure I could go to a luxury establishment like over in hard rock for better doughnuts but it kinda lacked the convenience. Cant win them all but I cant complain. Anyway, we saved tons of money due to the food court, and I think that's why people dislike it so much. "Omg its like a shopping mall", you mean...affordable food court dining options? because that was the only thing mall like to me. That and the stores being in there, and all of them have that. I mean, tropicana reminds me MORE like a mall from what I've seen, just a fancier one. 

And again, I guess, if you want fancy and like fancy, there are better options there. But if I had to go elsewhere I'd probably go to like tropicana or something, not to the big three everyone brags about. Also affordable, and seems to have a lot of interesting stuff on their premises like arcades, movie theaters, stores, places to eat, etc. Why didnt I go there? Well, for what we were going for, resorts seemed to be a better fit. I was thinking more about emulating the southern vacations I go on with places like margaritaville on the premises, getting a better room for less money, and also being in a more central location. Tropicana is on the far end of the boardwalk away from everything, resorts is more in the middle with lots of other casinos with other accommodations nearby like Hard Rock, and even showboat and ocean. So...yeah....

Either way, we werent really there long enough to fully take in what options we did have. I feel like we barely scratched the surface of what was offered and yeah while we plan to go back, it was interesting.

Anyway, I just wanted to write this due to how it intersects with more political topics I normally engage with. I got that "sociological imagination" thing going on and understand how social sciences and trends intersect with daily life to a point that I just cant turn it off and see it everywhere I go. And I just wanted to write this given how much racism and classism I see in regards to people crapping on my own preferences. Really, I'm not gonna trash anyone who likes a bigger fancier casino, but if those types start crapping on MY preferences with really ridiculous criticisms, well....now I'm gonna actually dissect what's actually being said.  

I'm sorry, but if you don't like Zohran Mamdani or Abdul El Sayed speaking about 9/11, you're racist

 Seriously, given my relatively anti woke policy stances, I hate pulling the racism card, but people keep insisting on showing their ### on this issue. 9/11 was perpetuated by Osama Bin Laden, a militant islamic extremist. However, that's not to say all Muslims are responsible for 9/11, similar to how not all Christians are responsible when some whack job Christian blows something up. It seems like we get that nuance with Christianity, but not Islam, and that is basically racist. And really, when I'm the one defending religion, you know you're F-ing up given my "New Atheist" political roots. 

But yeah. A lot of people, especially on the right, are giving those two crap for what they're saying. Rudy Guiliani, who was the mayor during 9/11 and actually came off looking like a hero for it at the time, was bashing Zohran for speaking at the 9/11 ceremony yesterday. While they apparently shared an awkward handshake, Guiliani was talking a lot of crap about Zohran before hand. And it's ridiculous. He's the mayor now, IT'S LITERALLY HIS JOB! Like wtf? Oh he's muslim so he shouldnt be mayor, DAE remember 9/11? Yeah, on this topic, my parents came into my room that night warning me not to blame 9/11 on ALL muslims or to give muslim kids in my school crap for it because they had nothing to do with it. I was really wondering at the time like....wtf, who would do that? But now I look at it 25 years later and I'm like, Oh, YOU ###holes! If anyone is an embarrassment to NYC, its guiliani. If not for 9/11, he'd be a wash out. And any clout he gained from his handling of 9/11, he's destroyed by aligning himself with trump and then going on about THIS crap.

And then you have people online bashing Abdul El Sayed for saying something like on 9/11 he mourns the 3000 lives lost, on 9/12, he mourns the millions lost from our subsequent actions.

...he's not wrong. And I've been critical of our actions post 9/11 as well over the years. I honestly think the drunken rampage we went on since then has done far more damage than the event itself. Between service members lost, the tax dollars spend, the blow to our international credibility Bush caused, the national security state that he built, and, of course, the thousands and millions of civilian casualties our interventions have cost since then, both directly and indirectly, YIKES. The event was bad, dont get me wrong, but theres a reason a lot of us younger people are more critical of interventionism and this weird faux patriotism the GOP puts on. As I've been telling conservatives I've been arguing with, we've seen the results of their preferred policies, they suck, yeah, let's not do that again. 2020s conservatives? Let's do that again but worse! Their boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes them cheer.

Anyway, 9/11 sucked, it was a horrible event, shouldnt have happened, we should mourn the dead. However, it was also a learning experience, and uh...some of us have learned the real lessons, and others of us still haven't. And the latter kinda disturbs me. I can forgive people who thought like this (minus the actual islamophobia) in like 2003....but if you're still sounding like a neocon in 2026, YIKES. And if you let your whole ### hang out with the racism, double yikes. Seriously, seeing so many people melt down over zohran mamdani and abdul el sayed existing is, itself, an eye opening experience. Yeah, we still got some really racist MFers in this country, and the fact that these attitudes are so common disturbs me. For as much as I'd like to imagine america as being post racial animous, the more republicans put their ### out there since Trump started running for office just continues to amaze and disturb me. 

Election Update 9/11/26

 "Sir, another democrat favorable poll has hit the averages..." *Bush face*

  Yeah. That's what it feels like these days. So...I got a lot to talk about with this one. Let's get to it.

Senate

So....we finally got some good data out of South Carolina and Kansas, which mostly corroborated those crazy polling averages that made me revert my Nebraska data, since it actually does seem reasonable to believe Osborn may be winning or at least within a reasonable range of doing so. 

This makes the map look REALLY bad for republicans. Not only are they losing states that were previously unthinkable like Alaska and Texas, but now Kansas and South Carolina are showing up as swing states. Like, what the actual fudge? Yeah, this is NUTS. Trump is REALLY unpopular and he's losing badly. 

House

This I don't have as much to talk about. Average lurched back toward the democrats a bit more, making the forecast more favorable. 

 Governors

 

Here, a few more dem leaning governors got added to this. I dont expect Minnesota or New York to flip any time soon, but I like to track everything within around 12 points or so, so those got added. Maine is technically out of range but I'll keep it for now since it's being tracked pretty regularly and it's already there. 

Conclusion

This week's forecast is really bullish on democrats, even more than normal. I really have to be wondering, is this real? or are republicans REALLY doing this bad? I kinda gotta believe the numbers because I look at trump and I honestly wonder how anyone, even someone who is conservative, can support this guy. Seriously. So maybe he really is doing this bad? Either way, happy to see it, and hope this holds out come election time. Like always though i would advise anyone reading this to use a bit of caution here. If republicans have a reasonable overperformance, all of these crazy gains can be reversed and they'll still hold onto the senate, as I've discussed before. I really do think the republicans taking the house is highly unlikely though.  

Dont fall for Trump's $5000 stimulus checks

 In a desperate ploy to save the republicans in the mid terms, Trump is promising to give every American $5000 if republicans win both the house and the senate. As the UBI guy, I'm just going to warn you guys NOT to do it. There's more at stake this election than UBI. The republicans are a proto fascist party that's a threat to democracy itself. They're toying with AI that could eventually kill us all as I just discussed in the previous article. Yeah, let's not do this.

Even more so, as the UBI guy, let's discuss why this proposal actually sucks. Remember COVID? Remember how he gave everyone $600 checks and then Biden gave them $1400 checks, and then republicans turned around and blamed those checks on inflation and making people lazy? Yeah...I remember too. And here's the thing. UBI, done properly, is supposed to be funded with taxation and spending cuts. We do that to stop inflation. If you fund it without doing that, you increase the money supply, which, without proportionally increased production, devalues the currency. More money for the same amount of stuff means money is worth less. 

This ploy will likely cost $1.25 trillion, assuming we give $5000 to 250 million adults. That will be added to the deficit. Rich people wont pay for it. They probably wont be able to cut anything to fund it without screwing over a lot of people (this is why a lot of people on the left are skeptical of UBI). And for a one time check, the money will be spent and then it's gone, and then everything will cost more. It's a terrible policy.

And then UBI will be toxic for a generation, because the worst possible person did it in the worst possible way. "Oh remember when that guy gave everyone $5000 and it caused inflation?" They already pulled this with Biden over $1400 checks, and those barely contributed to inflation in the grand scheme of things given the complexities of the global economy at the time.

But yeah. Say no to Trump's $5000 checks. If we're gonna do UBI, we should do it right. We do it poorly and we hurt the cause more than we help it. And we dont want Trump to win anyway. Again, there's far more at stake here than a single use $5000 check. 

AI is going to kill us all

 So, this isn't good. People are quitting anthropic and claiming that AI has a >10% chance to kill us all by the end of the decade. That....isn't good. I feel like, we're in a science fiction movie. We got the scientists warning main plot point is a bad idea, a bunch of morons in charge who are like "I DONT CARE DO IT ANYWAY", they do it anyway, and that's the movie. Terminator, Frankenstein, any B sci fi or horror movie that I used to think was too stupid to ever happen in real life, and yet, here we are. 

Regulate this crap. I mean Im under the impression AI intelligence isnt real intelligence, but viruses arent really alive and yet they replicate in ways that kill humans anyway. It's like that. Even if it's simulating intelligence, it can still simulate doomsday scenarios and enact them in real life. It doesnt have to be superintelligent. It just has to mimic it in ways that are dangerous enough to cause the problems. 

You'd think that we'd have smart people in charge who are like "this is a bad idea" but because billionaires who care more about short term profit than the longevity of the species and the Trump administration who is very much in bed with those types, yeah, we're screwed. Keep in mind climate change will eventually screw us over too if not kill us all and they've been ignoring THAT for 50 years. These people dont care as long as they continue to make money short term. It's highly idiotic. Ugh...

So what should be done about Nebraska?

 So...I came across a post online with Nate Silver's polling averages and it had Kansas at like R+3 for the senate. i know the governor's race is expected to be in play, but is Kansas REALLY in play? Well, looking at the polls, it's mostly a lot of dem aligned internal polls. Low quality. But wait, Nebraska is the same thing. No polls on realclearpolitics, and the polls reported by other sites are low quality internal polls that don't pass muster on more reputable outlets. I also checked out south carolina, same thing. Annie Andrews floods the averages with internal polls suggesting she's winning even though South Carolina is basically safe R. 

So...this is making me rethink including Nebraska in my model. The reason I've been so interested in this race is because Dan Osborn got within 7 points in 2024. If we actually have shifted 8 points since then, it's plausible he can win. At the same time, it's also possible the 2024 matchup was more favorable to him. After all, the state went by 20 for Trump in 2024, Osborn overperformed by 13 points. But if we're seeing R+13 states like Ohio, Iowa, and Texas performing close to 50-50 as we have been, that means under NORMAL conditions, we should still see Nebraska go like R+12 or something. Osborn is an overperformer here. And he could overperform again. I don't know. 

The problem is, if I include it in my model as is, I should also add kansas and south carolina and their junk data. Seriously, the polls on Nebraska are just as bad. All Osborn sponsored polls, low reliability. Probably way too D optimistic. 

So...what should be done with Nebraska? Well, I could revert to some placeholder data and just throw a number in there that may be realistic or not realistic, but I dont know what that number should be. I'm seeing anything from D+1 to R+12 as realistic in the current environment, and if I split the difference it would be somewhere in the ballpark of R+5.5. Osborn last time performed around R+6.6. He could perform better than that, but I don't know where.

If I were to rate the race in terms of general probability, I'd be inclined to say either lean R or likely R. Lean R is the range between R+1 and R+4 in my model. Likely R is R+4 to R+8. 

If I did a kneejerk probability rating, I'd probably be inclined toward the upper part of lean, giving the possibility of a flip somewhere around 1 out of 6. That's 83% which is just short of the 84% of an R+4. So I'm leaning toward either an R+4 or an R+6. Maybe an R+5 to split the difference. If I were to estimate a range of performance I'd say it'll likely go between like R+11 or so to D+1. Once again, R+5. 

So....with that said, I'll axe the polling data which is partisan, low quality, and unreliable, and assume an R+5 rating. I mean, all of the factors I'm considering like the range of possible performance, to relative position of Nebraska vs other states, to Osborn's past performance, seem to converge around R+5. So until I get reliable data, as in, reputable data that RCP actually reports, I'll consider it R+5. 

So with that said, here's my updated senate prediction:

Yeah, that looks a bit more realistic. Anyway, that's my updated senate prediction. 

They're building 1984

 Okay, so this is gonna sound a bit conspiracy theoryish, but I think it's worth grappling with. So...I talked about fascism, techno fascists, and how the trump administration is openly authoritarian, supporting people like the dark enlightenment people who don't believe in democracy, and that Trump might make a pass at going full on authoritarian. But one thing I do want to emphasize is the surveillance state aspect of it. What do flock cameras, data centers, and smart devices all have in common? They create a surveillance dragnet to watch everything you do. Gamer's nexus talked about it today and this has been going around in my head for a while.

Flock cameras 

So...flock cameras, they're everywhere now. And people keep pointing out that they're creepy and dystopian. I have mixed opinions on them quite frankly. I live in a high crime area and some have wanted cameras for years in high crime intersections to track criminals and get them arrested. While there's nothing wrong with this, if they're placed there through democratic consensus, they have a clear purpose, and clear guardrails, these cameras are popping up everywhere, often against the will of the people, they dont have a clear purpose, and they are ripe for abuse. They can track people wherever they go, giving them no privacy outside of their homes. And even if we're okay with THAT, well...buckle up.

Smart devices

So gamer's nexus mentioned smart tvs, but this applies to phones, tablets, laptops, etc. It's possible, in theory, for these things to listen to what you say and record everything you say or do in your own home. It's also possible for them to be used without a warrant if corporations just hand your data over to the government on demand. Which they are probably doing. So not only are you being tracked outside of your home, but in them as well. That heated political discussion at dinner where someone said something they shouldnt have said, its probably in a data base somewhere. Speaking of which.

Data centers

 So we all know AI data centers are being built like crazy. But there's a clear financial problem with them. It's a product/service with no real demand. The whole bubble is artificial. But....what if the real client is the government? All that stuff being recorded, the data needs to go somewhere, right? So...why not tons of data centers? And how are they gonna sift through all that data? AI, of course! So....yeah. Really crappy dystopian spy crap. 

Discussion 

And all of this seems to bypass normal 4th and 14th amendment protections. You have no right to privacy outside of your home, they hide behind terms and conditions and corpo speak no one reads to justify you giving your data to corporations, and the corporations partner with the government and give it to them. 

Now, under a normal administration,  this would be concerning as is. There were concerns about, for example, spying on people during the Bush administration due to the patriot act and its provisions. But during the Trump years? When this administration has explicit anti democratic tendencies and seems to be aligned with some really dark mofos who not just share those tendencies but are the same tech bros pushing this crap? Yeah....scary to think about. They're literally building 1984. They were just 40 years off. 

if our country goes to crap, this data will be used against us in significant ways. They'll find whatever crimes or infractions they can and charge you for them. They'll use directives like NSPM7 to justify spying on the political opposition. They'll try to go after dissenters and jail them. Oh, and they already are putting the apparatus in place to handle that, what with the militarization of the police, the use of troops on US soil, ICE being trump's personal army, etc. Oh, and those camps for migrants. They can quickly be converted into makeshift prisons for dissenters. Kinda like what Hitler did in the 1930s. That's how we got concentration camps btw, they started as places to send dissenters and they ramped it up to genocide in the later years. Fun fact. 

But yeah. This crap is CREEPY. Like....really creepy, and I've been thinking about it for the past few days, and I just wanted to discuss it a bit. We're heading toward a world where the government records everything you do, and if they dont like you, they can theoretically start jailing and disappearing you. This is America in the 2020s. Scary to think about. Vote democrat while you still have the liberty to and hope we can remove trump and the republicans without them going full fascist here. There's still time to reverse course, hopefully....