![]() Mike Madrid, the Republican political pundit who has long fought his party’s slide into extremism, agrees that Schwarzenegger isn’t likely to be a voice of reason to Trump’s followers, but still sees two glimmers of hope when it comes to breaking down the former president’s lies.įor one, for the first time in years America is focused on international issues and has bipartisan (for the most part) consensus that Russia is in the wrong. That should give us all pause, because - though our focus is rightly on Ukraine - our own fight to protect democracy is still very much happening, albeit in slow motion. They would literally rather believe Putin, or at least Tucker Carlson, his American proxy. Add to that QAnon’s deep fears about Hollywood and the absurd but pervasive belief that its celebrities are involved in child trafficking, and there’s not a whole lot the Terminator can say that’s going to change Trumpers’ minds. Trump doesn’t like Schwarzenegger, which means his followers don’t either. Schwarzenegger hosted the spinoff show, on which Trump was a producer, and got into a public tiff with him in 2017 over declining ratings - each blaming the other for the lack of viewers. Bloom, who I talk to often about the infiltration of QAnon and conspiracy theories into the mainstream, said Schwarzenegger doesn’t have the same credibility with Trump supporters that he has with Russians and “isn’t the person to talk to people who are in the deepest recessions of the conspiracy theories.”īlame it on “Celebrity Apprentice,” QAnon and Trump, she said, who apparently is more powerful than Putin when it comes to keeping his true believers in line. Schwarzenegger’s failure to arouse any sense of unity in this country wasn’t surprising to Mia Bloom, an extremism expert and professor of communication and Middle East studies at Georgia State University. Russian opposition politician Lubov Sobol tweeted, “Your opinion is very important for Russian people, generations were raised on movies with you,” hours after the video went live. The video’s effect could be seen quickly. But this video “will speak throughout Russia.” “People left to their own devices will oftentimes yield at times of fear, anger, stress and peer validation to things that intoxicate against the fear, no matter how conflictual or wrong it may be,” says Levin. Schwarzenegger has a credibility and love inside Russia, especially with the older generation that is more inclined to believe state news, that “transcends nationhood” and could “move the needle,” said Levin. As Brian Levin, head of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, puts it, Schwarzenegger “just spews out sincerity.” That’s significant because in what Levin describes as “catalytic moments,” like say, the possible buildup to World War III, people go searching for truth but often settle for what feels best.
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