A few days after the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6th, 2020, former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger published a video message on democracy. With reference to his experience of democratic breakdown in his native Austria, Schwarzenegger made an emotional appeal for democracy. At the time, this message was considered well crafted and highly persuasive. A best practice case for making the case for democracy. In a survey experiment, we put the persuasiveness of this video message to an empirical test (along with another prominent intervention, a speech by Mitch McConnell on the peaceful transfer of power). We find no effects of attitude change through exposure to any of these videos among Trump voters.
