Arnold Schwarzenegger released an emotional video, comparing the MAGA riot to Kristallnacht
Arnold Schwarzenegger released an emotional video on Sunday, comparing the riot at the US Capitol to Kristallnacht.
- Schwarzenegger likened the MAGA riot to the Night of Broken Glass: a night of rampage against the Jews.
- He shared a painful memory as he revealed that his father (who had joined the Nazis) used to beat him and his mother out of guilt for “what he saw and did”.
- The former governor of California called Trump “a failed leader” and compared the democracy of the US to a sword: “Our democracy is like the steel of this sword. The more it is tempered, the stronger it becomes.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger compared the Proud Boys to the Nazis.
On Sunday, the former governor of California released an emotional video in which he likened the riot at the US Capitol to Kristallnacht. Schwarzenegger shared, “I grew up in Austria. I’m very aware of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass. It was a night of rampage against the Jews carried out in 1938 by the Nazi equivalent of the Proud Boys. Wednesday was the Day of Broken Glass right here in the United States.” He explained that the mob shattered the windows of the US Capitol and “trampled the very principles on which our country was founded.”
The 73-year-old shared painful memories from his childhood as he spoke about his abusive father.
According to the Daily Mail, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s father Gustav “was a policeman in Austria who joined the Nazis and was wounded on the eastern front.” While the former actor has previously spoken about his childhood and his father, he has never before shared painful memories so publicly. “I was born in 1947, two years after the Second World War,” he said. “Growing up, I was surrounded by broken men drinking away the guilt over their participation in the most evil regime in history. Not all of them were rabid anti-Semites or Nazis. Many just went along step-by-step down the road. They were the people next door.”
Now, I’ve never shared this so publicly because it is a painful memory. But my father would come home drunk once or twice a week, and he would scream and hit us and scare my mother. I didn’t hold him totally responsible because our neighbor was doing the same thing to his family and so was the next neighbor over. I heard it with my own ears and saw it with my own eyes. They were in physical pain from the shrapnel in their bodies and in emotional pain from what they saw or did.
Schwarzenegger called President Trump “a failed leader”.
The former governor of California emphasized that Trump has fed lies to his supporters in the same way that his father and their neighbors were also misled with lies. What is more, Schwarzenegger explained that he has seen what these lies can do and how quickly they can cause things to spin out of control. Condemning Trump’s actions, he stated: “President Trump is a failed leader. He will go down in history as the worst president ever. The good thing is that he will soon be as irrelevant as an old Tweet.” In addition to this, he addressed the officials who have enabled Trump’s behavior, reminding them of what Teddy Roosevelt once said: “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president.”
Comparing the US democracy to the steel of a sword, Schwarzenegger claimed that “the more it is tempered, the stronger it becomes”.
Using a powerful metaphor, the former actor inspired hope and faith in democracy. That is, he compared the US democracy to Conan’s sword. “Now, here’s the thing about swords,” he began. “The more you temper a sword, the stronger it becomes. The more you pound it with a hammer and then heat it in the fire, and then thrust it into the cold water, and then pound it again, and then plunge it into the fire and the water and the more often you do that, the stronger it becomes.”
Our democracy is like the steel of this sword. The more it is tempered, the stronger it becomes.
He concluded his touching statement by showing his support for Joe Biden and saying that America will come out of this stronger in the end. More importantly, he declared “Those who think they can overturn the United States constitution, know this. You will never win.”