![]() To me it’s just another demonstration of how ridiculous and needless the political division is right now. In the end I think Arnold will bounce back and this won’t define his legacy – though due to how stubborn he is, I doubt he’ll back peddle early enough to avoid any damage. My point is that by seemingly giving a middle finger to people who have more conservative values, Arnold essentially pissed off the exact people who would have most admired his bodybuilding achievements.Īgain, I don’t think this was intentional on his part, but pissing off your own fanbase doesn’t usually work out well (just ask Kevin Smith who masterfully alienated his fanbase recently). In the case of Arnold, the fact that he leans more left these days could be due to the fact he has spent the last several decades in Hollywood, perhaps over compensation for his father’s Nazi affiliation or maybe he’s just one of the outliers. ![]() I’m not just speaking out of my ass here, psychological profiles have been done and it seems to be the case that the majority of people who value fitness also tend to have conservative political tendencies – even if they don’t think of themselves as right wing. The latter mentality doesn’t tend to work well in the fitness world because no one else can do the work for you. When we look at what people on the right value compared to what people on the left value, the right tends to see the virtue of insentivising hard work while the left opts towards socialism and sharing the wealth. The big problem with his comment is that it is not only divisive, but alienating to the very people who would look up to him.Īt the moment the world is extremely divided, and it is the right-leaning people who feels like their freedoms are under attack, so his comment would clearly be more upsetting to conservative-minded people. He could have said that there are obvious limitations to what you can or can’t do in a civilized society, and that doesn’t constitute an infringement on freedom.Īnd I think he does deserve the benefit of the doubt and the opportunity to clarify his intentions by the remark – just as everybody deserves that. He could have said that freedom doesn’t mean you can cause other people harm. ![]() He could have said that his concern was people hiding behind the word “freedom” to justify actions that could endanger others. I kind of think he could have avoided this if he’d chosen his words a little better. You look at a company like Redcon 1, whose client base is predominantly people who also value things like patriotism and freedom, so to have someone imply those things are unimportant puts a company in a difficult position where they have to decide whether to brush it off and keep paying him, or cut ties. Personally, it looks like a business decision. So first of all, is this an over reaction? The respomse was pretty intense, as it saw supplement companies pulling their sponsorships from the Arnold classic, posters of him being taken out of major gyms and so on. On a recent interview (I believe with non-partisan outlet CNN), Arnold Schwarzenegger made the comment “screw your freedom” referring to individuals who don’t want to wear masks or get vaccinated. Not often do I write about the drama that seems to be ever-present in the bodybuilding world, but this one is pretty big. ![]()
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