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- Former California GOP Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sunday called members of the Republican Party “thornless” after the siege on the U.S. Capitol last week.
- In a lengthy video posted to Twitter, the actor and politician compared the insurgency in Washington, DC to the rise of Nazi Germany, blowing up Republicans who allowed Trump’s baseless claims about the election to 2020.
- Schwarzenegger also spoke of the abuse he suffered as a child by his father and compared American democracy to the sword in that 1982 film “Conan the Barbarian”.
- Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
In a lengthy video shared on Twitter Sunday, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor and former GOP governor of California, condemned members of his own party as “thornless” and compared the insurgency on Capitol Hill last week to the rise of Nazism in Germany.
“I grew up in Austria very conscious of Kristallnacht or the Night of the Broken Glass,” said Schwarzenegger, 73. “It was a night of rampage against the Jews carried out in 1938 by the Nazi equivalent of the Proud Boys.”
Kristallnacht took place in November 1938 and involved the murder of around 100 Jews and the destruction of Jewish businesses, synagogues, schools, and homes.
The Proud Boys are an extremist “fraternity” classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group has been linked with acts of violence in recent years, as Insider’s Rachel E. Greenspan previously reported. The group denies being a white supremacist organization, although experts have said its ideologies align with white supremacy.
“Wednesday was shattered glass day right here in the United States,” said Schwarzenegger, who served as governor of California from 2003 to 2011. “Broken glass was in the windows of the United States Capitol, but the crowds didn’t ‘not just smashed the windows of the Capitol. They shattered ideas we took for granted. “
-Arnold Schwarzenegger) January 10, 2021
At least five people have died in the Jan.6 uprising on the U.S. Capitol. Trump supporters stormed the building as lawmakers were inside, overpowering Capitol Police, following Trump’s speech at a “Stop the Steal” rally where he repeated claims baseless on the 2020 elections.
Schwarzenegger, known for his films which include “The Terminator” and “Commando”, spoke of his childhood in post-war Austria, which he described as “the ruins of a country which lost its democracy” .
“I was surrounded by broken men drinking their guilt for their participation in the most evil regime in history,” he said, referring to the abuse he suffered from his father as a child. .
“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 didn’t hold him fully responsible because our neighbor was doing the same to his family.
“I heard it with my own ears and saw it with my own eyes,” he added. “They were in physical pain from the shrapnel in their bodies and in emotional pain from what they saw or did. It all started with lies, lies, lies and intolerance.”
Read more: Secret Service experts speculate in panel discussions on how Trump could be kicked out of the White House if he doesn’t budge 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 has sought to overturn the results of an election,” he said, referring to Trump’s refusal to concede the race for months and his unsuccessful attempts to reverse his loss. “And a fair election. He sought a coup by deceiving people with lies. My father and our neighbors were also misled by lies and I know where those lies lead.”
He also referred to former President John F. Kennedy’s 1956 book “Profiles in Courage,” in which the former president profiled eight US senators. Schwarzenegger said many of his “wireless” GOP colleagues could never land in such a book because of their continued support for Trump.
Several lawmakers, namely Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, have led the charge against certifying Biden’s victory over unsubstantiated allegations of widespread electoral fraud, even after Trump supporters backed down. gripped the US Capitol by months-long claims from Trump and his allies.
“We need public servants who serve something greater than their own power or their own party,” he said. “We need public servants who will serve higher ideals – the ideals in which this country was founded.”
Towards the end of the nearly eight-minute clip, Schwarzenegger pulled out the sword from his 1983 film “Conan The Barbarian” to serve as a metaphor for American democracy, saying that like a sword, democracy only grows stronger when ‘she is temperate.
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