- Former California GOP governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sunday called members of the Republican Party “spineless” after the siege of the US Capitol last week.
- In an extensive video posted on Twitter, the actor and politician compared the uprising in Washington, DC, to the rise of Nazi Germany, which blew up the Republicans that made Trump’s unfounded allegations about the 2020 election possible .
- Schwarzenegger also opened up about the abuse he encountered as a child by his father, comparing American democracy to the sword from this 1982 film “Conan the Barbarian”.
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In an extensive video shared on Twitter on Sunday, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor and former governor of the GOP of California, condemned members of his own party as ‘spineless’ and compared the uprising in the US Capitol last week to the rise of Nazism in Germany.
“I grew up in Austria, very aware of Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass,” Schwarzenegger, 73, said. “It was an evening of rioting against the Jews carried out in 1938 by the Nazi equivalent of the Proud Boys.”
The Kristallnacht took place in November 1938 and involved the murder of about 100 Jewish people and the destruction of Jewish businesses, synagogues, schools and houses.
The Proud Boys is an extremist ‘fraternity’ classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group. The group has been linked to violence in recent years, as Rachel E. Greenspan of Insider reported earlier. The group denies that it is a white supremacist organization, although experts have said that the ideologies are in line with white supremacy.
“Wednesday was the day of broken glass here in the United States,” said Schwarzenegger, who served as governor of California from 2003 to 2011. “The broken glass was in the windows of the American capital, but the mob did not just smash. The windows of the Capitol. They smashed the ideas we take for granted.”
-Arnold Schwarzenegger) 10 January 2021
At least five people were killed after the January 6 uprising in the US Capitol. Trump supporters stormed the building while lawmakers were inside, which overwhelmed Capitol police following Trump’s speech during a “Stop the Steal” rally in which he reiterated baseless allegations about the 2020 election.
Schwarzenegger, known for films containing ‘The Terminator’ and ‘Commando’, began to grow up in Austria after World War II, which he described as ‘the ruins of a country that had lost its democracy’.
“I was surrounded by broken men who drank away their guilt over their participation in the worst regime in history,” he said, making open about the abuse he faced as a child through his father.
“My dad would come home drunk once or twice a week, and he would scream and hit us and scare my mom,” he said. ‘I did not hold him completely responsible, because our neighbor did the same to his family.
“I heard it with my own ears and saw it with my own eyes,” he added. “They had physical pain through the grenade in their bodies and in emotional pain because of what they saw or did. It all started with lies, lies and lies and intolerance.”
Read more: Secret service experts speculate in group talks about how Trump could be dragged out of the White House if he did not step down on inauguration day.
Schwarzenegger called Trump a “failed leader” and said the president would be remembered as the worst American president in history.
“President Trump tried to overturn the outcome of an election,” he said, referring to Trump’s monthly refusal to concede the race and his failed attempts to overturn his loss. “And of a just election. He sought a coup by deceiving people with lies. My father and our neighbors were also deceived with lies and I know where such lies lead.”
He also refers to former President John F. Kennedy’s 1956 book Profiles in Courage, in which the former president profiled eight U.S. senators. Schwarzenegger said many of his “spineless” GOP colleagues could never end up in such a book because of their continued support for Trump.
Several legislatures, namely the Republican sense. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, led the charge against certifying Biden’s victory over unfounded allegations of widespread election fraud, even after Trump supporters tampered with the U.S. Capitol over the months-long demands of Trump and his allies.
“We need civil servants who serve something greater than their own power or their own party,” he said. “We need civil servants who will serve higher ideals – the ideals in which this country was founded.”
Towards the end of the nearly eight-minute clip, Schwarzenegger brought the sword out of his 1983 film “Conan The Barbarian” to serve as a metaphor for American Democracy, saying that Democracy, like a sword, only grows stronger as it is tempered.