Arnold Schwarzenegger

Source: Bigstock

I was gonna open this column with “One of the questions I’m frequently asked about the Holocaust,” but that would’ve been dishonest.

I’m never asked questions about the Holocaust.

Oh, I hear from Holocaust deniers. Lots of ’em. But they never ask questions; they just issue idiotic declarations disguised as questions.

“Isn’t it terrible how the Jews faked the Holohoax?”

See, that’s not actually a question. It’s what passes for a question among the Unz/Jones crowd.

That’s the irony; the more a group claims “we’re just asking qwestchins,” the less they ever actually ask questions.

So a better opening line is, one of the things I hear most frequently when readers email me about the Holocaust is, “Stalin killed more people than Hitler, but all we ever hear about is Hitler. Because the Jews write history!”

It’s actually a bit more complex than that. Hitler stands out because he was epochal. History reserves a special place for those who either begin something or end something. Stalin did neither. There were communist dictatorships before Stalin, and communist dictatorships after. Mao’s death toll surpassed Stalin’s, and Pol Pot innovated speed and cruelty.

Hitler, on the other hand, ended something. In the decades after his fall, “white supremacist” regimes and colonial enterprises either dismantled themselves or were forcibly dismantled.

You can still say you’re a communist, anywhere in the world. You cannot say you’re “fighting for the white race,” anywhere in the world.

That’s why Hitler stands out: He was the last of something. He was a death knell.

So his historical significance is explicable.

What’s more interesting to me is that occasionally an epochal villain doesn’t get the credit he deserves.

Like Arnold Schwarzenegger. This vile, corrupt, nanny-diddling piece of Eurotrash single-handedly killed red California, the 1990s California that passed the most restrictive anti-illegal-immigration state-level law in history, banned affirmative action, defeated a “Green New Deal,” mandated English-only in classrooms, passed the most hard-assed Three Strikes law ever, and strengthened the death penalty via three different ballot initiatives that specifically increased penalties for the most beloved crimes of our black population (carjacking, cop-killing, and drive-bys).

Then, in 2003, here came Schwarzy, hijacking a recall effort in which he was not supposed to be the GOP candidate.

And he ran as the standard-bearer of 1990s red California.

His platform? Immigration! In between those incomprehensible guttural sounds of his, the message was clear: “Close the border glauuuurgh…deportations day one ghelhaurrrgh!”

He won in a landslide. And once in office, he quickly forgot about immigration and devoted his time to partnering with leftists to pardon/commute “criminals of color.” This verminous monster was so arrogant about not caring about policy, he openly admitted it: “My strength was not policy in 2003. My strength was personality, was…me. When it got into the [policy] details, I rather used comedy, used humor.” Like when he suggested that fellow recall candidate Arianna Huffington’s head should be “put in a toilet.”

This prick, who ran—and won—on immigration, has such a bloated ego that he needed, and still needs, to tell himself he won not on policy, but on zingers.

Hence why he could completely abandon his immigration agenda. Hence why he ended his tenure betraying his base on immigration and crime because his “strength isn’t policy but personality.”

Sound familiar? This is why my 2016 columns about Trump were skeptical. I’d seen this script play out before.

Schwarzenegger was epochal because he took the hopes and dreams of red California and betrayed them while at the same time enabling continued demographic shift via immigration, and anarcho-tyranny via the dismantling of law and order, so that here we are now, California 2023, and the numbers simply don’t exist anymore for a genuinely rightist GOP to win the governorship, in part because of immigration, and in part because 1990s red Californians have fled to escape crime, homeless street-shitters, and high taxes.

Schwarzenegger’s Nazi dad failed to take Leningrad. How proud he’d be that his son single-handedly took down the most populous state in the U.S.

And he did more than that. Schwarzenegger’s “zingers” are the reason Arianna Huffington founded the Huffington Post (yes, she credits the abuse she took from Schwarzenegger for prompting her to move left and launch her site). So those zingers inadvertently ushered in the age of shit internet journalism.

And who was Huffington’s partner in launching the site?

Andrew Breitbart, who, after seeing how successful Huffington’s shit journalism was, decided to launch a similar site of his own.

But Breitbart was always at cross-purposes. His initial plan was to run sites that would appeal to the mainstream by not appearing partisan. That’s why the sites were initially called “Big Politics” and “Big Journalism” (remember that?).

“These sites aren’t about ideology or personality. They’re hard news!”

But at the same time, Breitbart’s inflated ego compelled him to make the sites all about himself. He was one of the world’s greatest attention whores. So the notion of “these sites won’t carry my name because I want them to be seen as independent news orgs” clashed with “LOOKY ME LOOKY ME I NEED STANDING OVATIONS AND NIGHTLY FOX KUDOS!”

Quick: Name the managing editor of The Washington Post. Can’t? Because that’s how “serious” news sites work. Sure, they’re partisan as hell, biased as hell. But the operators move in the dark. Their ego boost comes from being a hidden hand, not a household name.

While his stated intention might’ve been to mimic the “MSM,” Breitbart was in reality just creating another partisan personality cult.

In 2011, when Trump first toyed with a presidential bid, trying to ride the Obama birth certificate nonissue to the White House, Breitbart balked. He appeared on The O’Reilly Factor to state that while he approved of how Trump “plays the media,” he disapproved of Trump not having a legit “conservative” agenda.

Breitbart’s debate partner on that show, liberal Leslie Marshall, gleefully predicted that Trump would become another Schwarzenegger and destroy the GOP from within.

Now, that’s prescience. Which Breitbart lacked, because he couldn’t see that the media empire he was building was exactly the thing that would end up boosting Trump. Breitbart was saying, “I like Trump’s media personality and zingers, but he needs policies,” which was true—it was the immigration platform that got him elected. But what Breitbart missed was that the cult-of-personality echo-chamber ghetto, the siege mentality, the “attitude over substance,” and the “our lies vs. theirs” fetish he was cultivating among conservatives would ensure that even if independents cared about Trump’s platform, rightists would instead cling to the personality and zingers, should Trump abandon his platform as Schwarzenegger did.

Remember, Trump administration teat-suckler Darren Beattie, when attacking my position on Trump, straight-out admitted, “yes, we don’t care about policy. MAGAs care about personality and zingers.”

I’ll direct you to this 2016 column of mine in which I made clear that I knew, with certainty, that, based on the slavish reaction of my conservative friends to Trump’s 2011 birth certificate bullshit, were Trump elected, he would not build a wall.

That, also, is prescience. Because I have a memory. I connect real-life dots, not Alex Jones dots.

What’s especially interesting about that straight line from Schwarzenegger to Trump is that when Schwarzenegger caved on his platform while in office, the Dems (the smart ones, the career politicos) examined cost/benefit and decided it was most profitable for them to welcome Schwarzy’s conversion. Don’t anger red Californians. Allow their figurehead to be co-opted so they can see that there’s no hope. Give up. Your every savior will be a Judas. Enjoy the sunshine and die off.

By the time of Schwarzenegger’s 2006 reelection bid, he had the endorsement of the L.A. Times, and the Dems ran a perfunctory “no win” candidate just as a formality. It was a smart move. Continuing to attack Schwarzenegger would’ve only prompted him (egomaniac that he is) to attack back, and he had high enough likability numbers that it could’ve hurt the Dems. But accepting his surrender and proclaiming him “a great guy” dealt a mortal morale blow to CA rightists. Their “last great hope” had sold out, so why even try anymore?

Conversely, when Trump abandoned his platform, when he handed immigration policy to Jared Kushner, when he pivoted to “Platinum Plans” and pardons for black criminals, career politico leftists understood that their best move in that case was to never let up calling the guy Hitler. Never stop pounding him. Never stop making him feel besieged and despised.

To be fair, unlike in Schwarzenegger’s case, demonizing Trump had become a cottage industry on the left, so there was no possibility of accord. But it should be remembered that during the recall, Schwarzenegger had been vilified as a “Nazi rapist.” Indeed, the night before the recall Al Franken appeared on The Tonight Show to proclaim that if Schwarzenegger wins he’ll govern as “literal Hitler.”

But leftists correctly gauged that the best way to end red California would be to co-opt a willing Arnold. Whereas by 2020 it was clear that Trump had amassed a disruptive (as in, disruptive among conservatives) cult, and keeping those people, and Trump himself, angry and fighting, would split and destroy the GOP, just as Leslie Marshall predicted in 2011 (Marshall essentially called the 2022 midterms eleven years early).

Only two weeks ago I wrote about Trump calling DeSantis a pedo. And since then, he’s added that DeSantis will kill seniors by gutting social security and Medicare. Trump’s mindless zombie Mike Lindell has called DeSantis a “Trojan Horse” for the left. And even more mindless zombie Kari Lake falsely claimed that DeSantis was “endorsed by George Soros,” a bald-faced lie by a woman with a diseased mind. Soros stated that he believes DeSantis will get the 2024 GOP nomination, prompting Trump to run as a third-party candidate, thus ensuring GOP defeat, which Soros said he’s hoping for. Psychopath Lake ran a truncated version of that video, using only the “DeSantis will win the nomination” part to make it appear as an endorsement.

So, back to epochal. Trump’s in a very real position to damage the right nationally as Schwarzenegger did in Cali. He’s in a position to cause harm that’s irreparable. If he successfully tanks DeSantis by deploying “personality and zingers” (and lies), that might be red America’s last shot at the executive branch. DeSantis is legitimately anti-woke, an effective executive, and the definition of “not Schwarzenegger” (i.e., he made a pivotal state redder, not bluer). If Trump destroys him and (as would inevitably happen) loses to Biden again, red America may go the way of red California.

In the end, Trump—who was never Hitler in terms of policy or “racism”—might exit the stage as Hitler: a death knell, having salted the earth for generations to come.

But at least he’ll be remembered.

As will the MAGAs.

Enjoy the zingers. Vote zinger over policy.

It’s your ticket to epochal immortality.