the attitude with arnie arnesen the thursday edition Jan 8

[Arnie Arnesen]

The Attitude with Arnie Arnesen

opening thoughts: Eurasia report tops risks of 2026

opening thoughts: Venezuela, big oil and message to Zohran

producers: Dave Scott and Stephanie Collins

Chloé LaCasse (the best of the attitude)

streaming live at wnhnfm.org noon EST on the dial-94.7FM Concord NH

podcasts available at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/attitude-with-arnie-arnesen/id1634055179

opening thoughts:

who is Euraisa Group? In 1998, Ian Bremmer founded Eurasia Group, the first firm devoted exclusively to helping investors and business decision-makers understand the impact of politics on risks and opportunities in foreign markets.

bringing political science to the investment community and corporate decision-makers—launched an entirely new industry and positioned Eurasia Group as the world leader in political risk analysis and consulting.

https://www.eurasiagroup.net/issues/Top-Risks-2026

2026 is a tipping point year.  It's a time of great geopolitical uncertainty. Not because there's imminent conflict between the two biggest powers, the United States and China—that isn't even a top risk, it's a red herring this year. There's not (yet, at least) a second Cold War, with a rising China remaking the global system to its own liking, the Americans and allies resisting. Nor do tensions between the United States and Russia threaten to spiral out of control despite a war raging in Europe, the result of Vladimir Putin's long standing grievances against the US-led order.The United States is itself unwinding its own global order. The world's most powerful country is in the throes of a political revolution.

Risk 1: US political revolution By: Ian Bremmer,  Cliff Kupchan

The United States is experiencing a political revolution: President Donald Trump's attempt to systematically dismantle the checks on his power, capture the machinery of government, and weaponize it against his enemies. Last year, we warned about the “Rule of Don”; what began as tactical norm-breaking has become a system-level transformation beyond partisan hardball or executive overreach—qualitatively different from what even the most ambitious American presidents have attempted (please see Box 1: Trump vs. FDR). With many of the guardrails that held in Trump's first term now buckling, we can no longer say with confidence what kind of political system the United States will be when this revolution is over.

In Trump's view, he overcame a rigged election, two partisan impeachments, dozens of unjust felony convictions, and two assassination attempts—one a whisker's breadth from killing him—to stage the greatest political comeback in American history. President Trump sees the principal threat to him and his allies as domestic, not external, and he believes he has a mandate for retribution. The administration views this project not as an assault on democracy but as its restoration, a necessary purge of a political system captured by a deeply corrupt establishment that had already weaponized government against them. Over 77 million Americans voted for Trump in 2024, and many of them sympathize with that diagnosis: Among 2024 voters who said democracy mattered to their decision, a majority chose Trump—not because they saw him as a champion of democratic values, but because they believed the system was already broken and wanted someone who would disrupt it. "Trumpism" is structural, and at this most fundamental level, Trump's supporters are getting what they asked for.

Part one: West Coast levee failures show growing risks from America’s aging flood defenses

https://theconversation.com/west-coast-levee-failures-show-growing-risks-from-americas-aging-flood-defenses-272556

Farshid Vahedifard is Berger Chair Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University. He also serves as the Lead, Resilient and Equitable Infrastructure, the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH)

part two:

what is gaslighting? a go-to word for describing a specific kind of manipulation, one that makes someone question their own perception of reality.

Nora Gilbert is a professor of literary and film studies at the University of North Texas. She is the author of Better Left Unsaid: Victorian Novels, Hays Code Films, and the Benefits of Censorship (Stanford University Press, 2013) and Gone Girls, 1684-1901: Flights of Feminist Resistance in the Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century British Novel (Oxford University Press, 2023), and coeditor of Victorian Gaslighting: Genealogy of an Injustice (SUNY Press, 2026). 

https://www.publicbooks.org/the-lost-ending-of-gaslight-that-you-didnt-know-you-needed/

The Lost Ending of “Gaslight” That You Didn’t Know You Needed

random headlines from the last 48 hours

Trump is gaslighting America on Jan. 6, Swalwell says in op-ed

White House torches Democrats’ Jan 6 ‘gaslighting’ claims in anniversary takedown

More grift and gaslighting Expect Trump and his friends to benefit most from the invasion. Expect MAGA to fall in line.

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KEEPING THE POT STIRRED SO SCUM DOESN'T RISE TO THE TOP -  Anonymous 

D. ARNIE ARNESEN
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Host of "The Attitude with Arnie Arnesen"

Award Winning Public Affairs Show (NHAB 2018)

airs noon to 1pm and 7pm EST M-F at 94.7FM (concord nh)

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