What We’ve Lost as Americans – Schwarzenegger

Your first thought on seeing this posts title is “But Brother Bob, Arnold is from Austria!” And you would be correct, but as Arnold likes to refer to himself, “Born in Austria, but made in America!” And he’s not wrong. It’s been a while since I’ve added any new posts to my informal “What we’ve lost as Americans” series, over two years by my reckoning. There’s no schedule to this series, nor any set topics I have planned to write about. I’ve previously written about how we’ve lost The Olympics as a shared American experience, amusement parks like Action Park, and movies like The Cannonball Run, a film set in an America that sadly no longer exists. Back in 2022 we dove into the great science fiction anthology from Robert Heinlein, The Past Through Tomorrow. The last entry I wrote about in the series was the Sally Fields movie, Not Without my Daughter. And now thanks to some recent questionable judgement on his part, today I add Arnold Schwarzenegger (AS) to this list.

Growing up, I was a huge fan of AS. I became acquainted with him as Conan the Barbarian. Even though the movies sadly only loosely followed the classic Robert Howard books, Arnold truly brought the character to life on the big screen. And that was only the beginning- Terminator, Commando, Predator would become iconic action movies. Even his lesser entries from that time were decent diversions, such as Raw Deal and Red Heat. He showed he could work comedy in hits like Twins and Kindergarten Cop – Twins was overrated, while Kindergarten Cop was excellent. I refused to watch Junior, the film where Arnold plays a man who has a baby – me & my buddies chalked it up to him trying to get in with the Kennedy family he’d married into (Or maybe it was where he used Red Heat to positively portray the Russkies – it’s been a few decades so you’ll have to forgive my memory). Improbably, his sequel to The Terminator was excellent, and considered by many to be an even better story than the original.

This was also the time in my life where I started weight training. Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder was a favorite read among my buddies & me. We also went back and watched two movies from years back on the topic, the Jeff Bridges film Stay Hungry, and the documentary Pumping Iron, a movie which amounted to a great PR piece to promote Arnold as the face of bodybuilding. Even as a teenager I wasn’t stupid about him, and had no delusions of Arnold being some kind of god. When Mother Bob saw the cover of the book I was reading she said “Oh God, do you really want to look like that?” My reply was something to the effect of “No – I can’t afford the steroids.” But Arnold’s story was inspirational, and his book gave me some good basic exercises as a starting point.

Then the 90s came along, and AS jumped the shark with the box office Flop “Last Action Hero”. I remember Eraser also being awful, and the last movie of his I’d see in the theaters. I remember years after the fact watching the 6th Day and End of Days – both decent flicks that only warranted my category of “A worth watching once and only once movie”. I also liked Terminator 3 – while not as good as the first two it was a decent film. Of course, the Terminator movies went off the cliff after that, and would have a brief revival with the Arnold-less Sarah Conner Chronicles. That show enjoyed two very good seasons before Fox did its usual excellent job of murdering good shows (Firefly, anyone?) but that is a separate post.

Then came Arnold the politician, as the unpopular Gray Davis was recalled as Governor of California, and Arnold won the 2003 special election. Arnold has been groomed for politics, earning the nickname “Conan the Republican” after being seen with George HW Bush at the RNC Convention in 1992. He’d also worked with presidents trying to encourage physical fitness in kids – a good, bipartisan cause. I also heard rumors that he has also been to The Bohemian Grove gatherings. I had high hopes for Arnold turning around California, but he governed as a RINO, and while he got reelected for a second term, he was weakened enough that he had a Democrat as his Chief of Staff. In his Netflix documentary (more on that in a minute) he claimed “I wasn’t there to govern as a Republican or Democrat – I was there to serve the people!” Nice try, but you were weakened and struggling to hold onto power, so you officially joined the Uniparty at that time.

After his governorship, As mostly faded away with a few more bad movies, none of which even considered watching. I could have lived with that as his legacy, as he had an amazing run back in the day. Then came 2020, and Arnold had his opinion of anti maskers with his infamous “Screw your freedom!” remarks. Friendly advice Arnold, but even if the cultural antipathy towards Germany from WWII has faded from memory, hearing “Screw yah freedahm!” in a German accent wouldn’t go over well. Two years later, when AS was launching a podcast he decided to give a mealy mouthed non apology. Apology not accepted.

Then I saw there was a three part series on AS on Netflix. The first was on his early years and bodybuilding, the second on Hollywood, and the third his career as a politician. As expected, the first two parts were excellent, while in the third it was painful to watch him praising his disaster of a governorship, bragging about how his Climastrology policies inspired Obama. Dude, that is not a win. I almost made it to the end of that episode but had to tune out when Arnold started weighing in on January 6th. As I had to point out to one of Arnold’s supporters who gleefully posted that video, that having someone speaking with a German accent praising our version of the Reichstag Fire  is not the win you think it is.

Which brings us to last week, where Arnold went on Twitter claiming to be nonpartisan while endorsing the Coupmala/Awalz ticket. As you might guess, the responses gave it to him with both barrels. The “Screw your freedom” got a healthy rehash, as well as a few mentions of how he Emhoffed his cleaning lady.

Some of the critical pieces just wrote off Arnold as some idiot who can only read lines someone else puts on a script for him. That is just dead wrong, and it is never smart to write off someone as stupid who isn’t. I read another book back in the day, Arnold: an Unauthorized Biography. While highly critical of Arnold, the book actually made me like him more at the time. Between that and his ghost written autobiography, I got a picture of a man who was very driven, intelligent, and willing to put in hard work to achieve his goals. Sadly, he fell in with the wrong crowd when he became interested in politics. No, I’m not calling him an innocent victim – he’s smart enough to know who he was allying with. It’s just a shame that someone who had accomplished so much and became a symbol of the American Dream could become so corrupted and anti-American. Then again, maybe AS perfectly symbolizes how The Left has corrupted so much else in American society today.

It’s a shame that the old Arnold is gone and never coming back, but I’m OK with still enjoying the great work he produced between his films and promoting fitness. I just wish the New Arnold would just go away.

You and Kamala make a perfect team pic.twitter.com/xcSAcB6GEx

— Still Boneless (@still_boneless) October 30, 2024

Brother Bob is no longer on Facebook (although you can see his archives there), and is back on Twitter again, but is ramping up on Minds and Gab, and has his biggest presence on MeWe.

Cross posted from Brother Bob’s Blog

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