As a two-term Republican governor of California Schwarzenegger maintains a presence and a voice in Republican politics. 

On Sunday, in a video posted to social media, with over 2 million views so far, the 73-year-old said he “would like to say a few words to my fellow Americans and to our friends around the world about the events of recent days”.

“I grew up in Austria and was very aware of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass,” he said. 

“It was a night of rampage against the Jews carried out [by] the Nazi equivalent of the Proud Boys [a quasi-fascist group of Trump supporters].”
“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. It has shattered the ideals 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.”