Last December in the Polish city of Katowice, Arnold Schwarzenegger gave a brief speech about climate change.
In his speech Arnold called President Trump meshuga. The Yiddish word means crazy and the audience responded with applause. Arnold grew up in Graz, Austria as a son of a one-time Nazi party-member policeman. I don’t think that he heard much Yiddish at home. Many suspected that Schwarzenegger’s well-engineered comment was referencing Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who converted to Judaism to marry Jared Kushner. (Watch here the famous jab.)
Arnold knows how to play Eastern-European audiences. A hint of antisemitism goes a long way in this region toward promoting positive media coverage. No surprise that Arnold’s best buddy now is Viktor Orbán, the master of racist intimation.
Arnold and Viktor
For full disclosure, as a Californian I never voted for Arnold. He entered into politics and won the governorship in the 2003. In those days the state was in chaos; California’s broken electric grid and the ongoing “rolling blackouts” crippled the economy. Republican Schwarzenegger became the governor in what was only the second recall election of a state governor in American history.
Arnold’s political and personal life ended in disgrace. His wife left him after it was revealed that he had fathered a child with an employee in their household and his political approval rating hit all time low.
Now Arnold is trying to revive his political fortunes by courting right-wing leaders in Europe.
Another selfie
After visiting Moscow he called the Russian leadership “visionary.” In Vienna he met for a friendly chat with right-wing Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. The former Terminator is a frequent guest in Budapest. Last year he spent several weeks there due to a film project and in February of this year he joined Orbán in attending the Budapest funeral of film producer Andy Vajna.
Just having fun
Prime Minister Orbán hoped that the Trump administration will reward his early support with an invitation to the White House. Instead, the State Department in its recent Country Reports on Human Rights Practices has voiced serious criticism of his regime. Secretary Pompeo wrote: “Even some of our friends, allies, and partners around the world have human rights violations. We document those reports with equal force. Our aim is always to identify human rights challenges and use American influence and power to move every nation towards better, more consistent human rights practices.”
Today Schwarzenegger has little credibility. The aging muscleman will say and do anything to get media attention. In the meantime he is best buddies with Hungary’s authoritarian leader.
Shame on you Arnold!
György Lázár
1) Arnold Schwarzenegger had a Jewish mentor in Graz and the word meschugge is recorded in the “Österreichisches Wörterbuch” (Austrian Dictionary). Many Austrians use it without knowing from where it comes.
2) The Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz criticized a few days ago during a press conference his coalition partner, the very rightwing Freedom party, because of its connection with the Identitaeren, a group of antimuslim extreme right-wingers.
3) I do not share Lázár’s liking for simplifying dichotomy, on one side the good left-wingers, on the other side the bad rightist.
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Poland: Arnold Schwarzenegger calls Trump ‘meshugge’ on climate agreement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpJIfOLxFik
I would call Trump meshugge on every Level. Trump’s destructive rage is nothing short of Orban’s destructive rage. Hungary does not even have a climate goal or a program. They are both autocrats are both so right that even politicians to the right of the center appear as left.
Both are extremely right-wing autocrats, brothers of this spirit child, Arnold did not understand that or he does not want to understand it … imagine he would publicly criticize Orbán … then filming in Budapest for Arnold would soon be history. He would not be the first to be expelled from the country, that has a long tradition in Hungary. … just meshugge …
Dear Karl, always good to hear from you. Arnold had a Jewish mentor in Graz? Interesting! I don’t consider Arnold a right-winger, you know, as governor he officiated gay weddings! He is a smart populist with a carefully crafted, very likable image. He praised Hitler… was an illegal alien, abused woman and was a drog user. Also, had wild sex parties not even mentioning the questionnable real estate deals… and of course.. a failed politician with close friends like Orbán… yet, it seems that he is still adored by some conservatives… and even environmentalists. Ah, the Terminator…
Ill informed Americans are the most dangerous people in the world. A conservative estimate puts the number of those Americans who know nothing about the world close to 200 million – approx three quarters of the electorate fall into this lot. The number of those who have no clue about who rules America is only marginally lower. Just watch – in a few years Humpty Dumpty may well run for office and win. Get ready to change your computer chips everybody.
Be careful when changing Intel-8086-Brian-Chips …
“NASA needs parts no one makes anymore.
So to keep the shuttles flying, the space agency has begun trolling the Internet — including Yahoo and eBay — to find replacement parts for electronic gear that would strike a home computer [Brian] user as primitive.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/12/us/for-parts-nasa-boldly-goes-on-ebay.html
In case of a malfunction, Humpty Dumpty can also become Dompty Trumpty or Ormpty Vimpty.
Americans as well as other voters around the Western World do know one thing, and they know it because the feel it. They know that this century thus far, the current elite has not been delivering for them. The 1% are doing well, then there is a lower nobility of professional elites which are doing alright, which is another 20% or so. The other 79% are feeling shafted. They do not even have much hope of their children joining that 20%, because most who do are the children of those 20% + a steady & sizable import from abroad, which the elites find more convenient than forming the needed professional elites from among the masses. So, why not just elect “Humpty Dumpty” then?
I know for sure that he had a Jewish mentor and that the word meschugge is used by many Austrians and therefore it is not right to write that he had something against Ivanka, who became Jewish.
And yes one can say Donald Trump is Meschugge.
The politics and sex life of A.S. was not my topic.
Even a failed politician, who becomes a friend of Orbán should not be accused of antisemitic intention, only because he qualified D.T. with a word from the Austrian Dictionary.
Dear Karl, Arnold is an American (although he has Austrian citizenship) and he would never dare to use the word in the US… in fact, he gave hundreds of speeches and never used Yiddish… that is why the US media reacted strongly and many of us considered it anti-Semitic jab…
If you use information as a puzzle, neither Trump nor Orbán or Schwarzenegger is a friend of the Jews.
I admired Hitler for instance because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. And I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for his way of getting to the people and so on. But I didn’t admire him for what he did with it. It is very hard to say who I admired and who are my heroes. And I admired basically people who are powerful people, like Kennedy. Who people listen to and just wait until he comes out with telling them what to do. People like that I admire a lot.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/04/national/schwarzenegger-releases-data-on-hitler-comments.html