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Schwarzenegger, a Republican Party member and
long-time critic of Trump, likened the siege at the Capitol
Building last week to "Kristallnacht", or the Night of Broken
Glass, when Jewish-owned businesses and institutions were
destroyed by the Nazis in 1938 and dozens were killed.
"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," he said in the video published
on his official Twitter account on Sunday.
Drawing on his childhood experiences in post-war Austria,
Schwarzenegger warned against the threats to democracy from lies
and intolerance, and cautioned against mainstream complicity.
"Now I grew up in the ruins of a country that suffered the loss
of its democracy...Growing up, I was surrounded by broken men
drinking away the guilt over their participation in the most
evil regime in history," he said.
"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."
Schwarzenegger, 73, who started out as a bodybuilder before
reaching worldwide fame through his roles in films such as The
Running Man and Predator, revealed he had domestic violence at
the hands of his father.
"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," he
said.
"I did not hold him totally responsible because out neighbour
was doing the same thing to his family, and so was the next
neighbour over. I heard it with my own ears and saw it with my
own eyes."
Schwarzenegger said Trump, who would be remembered as the worst
president in U.S. history, had "sought a coup by misleading
people with lies".
The actor urged Americans to put aside their political beliefs
and heal together.
(Reporting by Yishu Ng in Singapore, Writing by Jacqueline Wong;
Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
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