In a scathing op-ed for The Economist, Arnold Schwarzenegger blasts Donald Trump‘s plan to overturn the 2020 election and cautions Republicans that if they go along with Trump’s “stupid, crazy, and evil” scheme, “Judgment Day” will be coming for them. While drawing on his early years in post-World War II Austria, Schwarzenegger warned the GOP that he’s seen what happens when a country gives up on democracy. In Austria’s case, it was a descent into Nazism, which isn’t too far off from America’s current trajectory under Trump. Via The Economist:
Growing up, I was surrounded by broken men drinking away their guilt over their participation in the most evil regime in history. They were part of a system that murdered 6m Jews along with at least 5m other innocent people, tortured and experimented on human beings and started a war that caused 75m deaths. Not all of them were rabid anti-Semites or Nazis. Many just went along step by step down the road toward greater and greater evil because it was the easiest path.
While Schwarzenegger says he doesn’t personally believe that America is capable of those “depths of evil,” he can’t help but see the warning signs as the country faces a choice between “choosing selfishness and cynicism over service and hope.” But should his fellow Republicans not heed Schwarzenegger’s call to stop Trump’s effort to subvert democracy, he has stern words for how they’ll be remembered.
“For those in my party considering standing up against the voters on January 6th, know this: our grandchildren will know your names only as the villains who fought against the great American experiment and the will of the voters,” Schwarzenegger writes. “You will live in infamy.”
(Via The Economist)