Actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger posted an impassioned speech to Twitter on Sunday, calling Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol Hill complex “America’s Day of Broken Glass,” criticizing those who enabled the president and his supporters.
“I’m very aware of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass,” Schwarzenegger, who grew up in Austria, said. “Wednesday was the Day of Broken Glass right here in the United States.”
“The broken glass was in the windows of the United States Capitol, but the mob did not just shatter the windows of the Capitol,” he continued. “They shattered the ideas we took for granted. They did not just break down the doors of the building that housed American democracy — they trampled the very principles on which our country was founded.”
My message to my fellow Americans and friends around the world following this week’s attack on the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/blOy35LWJ5
— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) January 10, 2021
The Capitol Hill complex went on lockdown Wednesday after planned “Stop the Steal” protests devolved into a violent breach of the congressional building. Trump called for peace but in a series of tweets appeared to defend the violence of his supporters, saying in a deleted tweet, “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots.”
In his speech, Schwarzenegger told stories of his father coming home drunk and hitting him because of the “physical pain from the shrapnel in their bodies” after being complicit in — and sometimes participating in — Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and the horrors of the Holocaust.
“It all started with lies and lies and lies — and intolerance,” Schwarzenegger said.
Schwarzenegger emphasized that he didn’t think America had become Nazi Germany and warned that “we must be aware of the dire consequences of selfishness and cynicism.”
“President Trump sought to overturn the results of an election and of a fair election. He sought a coup by misleading people with lies,” Schwarzenegger said. “My father and our neighbors were misled also with lies, and I know where such lies lead.”
The former governor criticized “those elected officials who enabled his lies and his treachery” and said, “We need to hold accountable the people that brought us to this unforgivable point” while calling on lawmakers stand up and “serve something larger than their own power.”
“America will come back from these dark days and shine our light once again,” Schwarzenegger said. “We need to heal, together, from the trauma of what has just happened.”
