In viral video, Arnold Schwarzenegger compares US Capitol mob to Nazis

In a moving, seven-minute video that quickly went viral, the 73-year-old actor opened up about his childhood in Austria after the Second World War, in an attempt to warn his followers against the increasingly hateful and divisive rhetoric prevalent in the United States.

 “Being from Europe, I’ve seen firsthand how things can spin out of control. I do believe that we must be aware of the dire consequences of selfishness and cynicism,” he said. 

He compared the US capitol riots to Kristallnacht, known as 'the Night of Broken Glass,' when the Nazis unleashed a series of brutal attacks on the Jewish population.

Schwarzenegger shared his painful experience of growing up in an unhealthy domestic environment with an abusive parent. He talked about men who drank to ease the “guilt over their participation in the most evil regime in history.” He considered his father one of them.

 “He would scream and hit us and scare my mother. My father and our neighbors were misled also with lies. And I know where such lies lead.”

Schwarzenegger, who is a Republican, has described Donald Trump as a ‘failed leader’ and the 'the worst president ever.’ He also called out his fellow Republican politicians who have failed to admonish or take a stance against Trump’s rhetoric in the past four years. He said that history would remember these politicians for “their own spinelessness.”

“We need to hold accountable the people who brought us to this unforgivable point,” he said. He urged for bipartisanship and healing of the nation's heart. He picked up a sword, referring to his famous 1982 film Conan the Barbarian, and in a resigned, hopeful tone, said, “Our democracy is like the steel of this sword. The more it is tempered, the stronger it becomes.”