NOW TOO MUCH FOR US? Mussolini was plainly a fascist!

THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 2026

As spelled with a capital F: If the soothing effects of comic relief were ever needed in American life, the time for such a blandishment is surely upon us now. And so we start with The Mouse That Roared 2, an emerging Greenlandic film.

The original vehicle, The Mouse That Roared, is rarely remembered today. It starred Peter Sellers, long before he played Dr. Strangelove and the submissive President Merkin Muffley, along with Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, who battled with the paranoid General Jack D. Ripper even as war broke out.

Peter Sellers wasn't Peter Sellers yet when The Mouse That Roared appeared. The year was 1959. Here's the start of the thumbnail:

The Mouse That Roared (film)

The Mouse That Roared is a 1959 British satirical comedy film on a Ban The Bomb theme, based on Leonard Wibberley's novel The Mouse That Roared (1955). It stars Peter Sellers in three roles: Duchess Gloriana XII; Count Rupert Mountjoy, the Prime Minister; and Tully Bascomb, the military leader. 

[...]

Plot

The minuscule European Duchy of Grand Fenwick is bankrupted when an American company comes up with a cheaper imitation of Fenwick's sole export, its fabled Pinot Grand Fenwick wine. Crafty Prime Minister Count Mountjoy devises a plan: Grand Fenwick will declare war on the United States, then surrender, taking advantage of American largesse toward its defeated enemies to rebuild the defeated nation's economy. Mild-mannered game warden Tully Bascomb is charged as Field Marshal to lead the Grand Fenwick troops, aided by Sergeant Will Buckley.

The contingent of 20 soldiers, in medieval chain mail uniform, travel across the Atlantic on a small merchant ship, arriving in New York Harbor during an air-raid drill that leaves the city deserted and undefended...

And so on from there, modern Braveheart-style. Today, the spunky island nation of Greenland is developing the basic plot lines for the emerging sequel to this forgotten film--though there's no apparent "surrender" in the DNA of that small underdog nation.

Even the French are now sending troops to bolster the spunky nation as it prepares for war with the intransigent Donald J. Trump. In these recent reports, Mediaite has documented the gathering of the forces:

Germany Joins Canada, Sweden, and Other Nations in Sending Troops to Greenland as Trump Threats Intensify
For full report, click here

Macron Sends Troops to Greenland as Trump Ramps Up Pressure: ‘Already on Their Way’
For full report, click here

Denmark Fumes Trump’s Greenland Goal Is ‘Totally Unacceptable’ After Short White House Meeting
For full report, click here

Germany and Canada and Sweden oh my, with Denmark doing the talking! This is no submissive Grand Fenwick--and those French troops are now on the way!

Given the madness of the time, this military pushback from Greenland provides a tiny bit of hope to those of us down here in the Lower 50. On the other hand, much will turn on a basic question:

Will Commander Trump be prepared to accept defeat at the hands of this coalition?

In her new column for the New York Times, Michelle Goldberg examines an intriguing question about that same President Trump. We've been teasing this column for two days. As Goldberg starts, she defines the question she's exploring:

The Resistance Libs Were Right

For the last decade there’s been a debate, among people who don’t like Donald Trump, about whether he’s a fascist.

The argument that he isn’t often hinges on two things. First, when Trump first came to power, he lacked a street-fighting force like Benito Mussolini’s Blackshirts, even if he was able to muster a violent rabble on Jan. 6. “Trump didn’t proceed to unleash an army of paramilitary supporters in an American Kristallnacht or take dramatic action to remake the American state in his image,” wrote the leftists Daniel Bessner and Ben Burgis in “Did It Happen Here?,” a 2024 anthology examining the fascism question.

Second, Trump didn’t pursue campaigns of imperial expansion, which some scholars view as intrinsic to fascism. “For all of Trump’s hostility towards countries he perceives as enemies of the U.S., notably Iran, there is no indication that he sought a war with any foreign power, still less that he has been consumed by a desire for foreign conquest and the creation of an American empire,” wrote Richard J. Evans in his 2021 essay “Why Trump Isn’t a Fascist.”

It’s striking how much the arguments that Trump is not a fascist have suffered in just the first few days of this year, in which we’ve plunged to new depths of national madness.

Is President Trump a fascist? Later in her column, Goldberg seems to conclude that of course he is, and we won't exactly say that she's wrong. 

(Goldberg: "From the moment he descended his golden escalator, Trump’s message, the emotional core of his movement, has been textbook fascism.")

Trump's core has been textbook fascism," Goldberg says. We aren't going to say that she's "wrong."

Also, we have indeed plunged to something resembling "new depths of national madness" in the years since President Trump came down the escalator and declared himself a candidate. In our view, is we noted yesterday:

President Trump has been, and remains, the principal source of that national madness, except for the share of the national madness which has perhaps emerged from us Blues.

Except for our tribal blindness. Except for our occasional failure to spot the best way to react to the inveterate daily madness emerging from President Trump. 

In our view, we Blues have never quite found the most productive way to respond to his endless ludicrous claims or to his astounding public demeanor, or to the peculiar ways he has begun to assert American military strength all across the globe.

We refer to the way he wants to abandon Ukraine. We refer to his love affair with Putin. We refer to the nut-ball way he is now affixing his name all over D.C. We refer to the nut-ball way he tore the East Wing down, after explicitly telling the nation that he wouldn't so much as touch it.

We refer to the giant Arc de Triomphe he now nuttily says he's going to nuttily build at the southern end of town. We refer to the lunatic claim--the lunatic claim h will never abandon--that he actually won the 2020 election, which he crazily says was "rigged."

Is President Trump a fascist? As you may be able to guess, we think that's the less helpful question.

Plainly, Mussolini was a fascist. It's easy to make that declaration--he said he was a fascist!

Indeed, he's the man who coined the term! It was the name of his party:

Fascism

Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement that rose to prominence in early-20th-century Europe. Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Opposed to communism, democracy, liberalism, pluralism, and socialism, fascism is at the far-right of the traditional left–right spectrum.

The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I before spreading to other European countries, most notably Germany.

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Etymology

The Italian term fascismo is derived from fascio, meaning 'bundle of sticks', ultimately from the Latin word fasces. This was the name given to political organizations in Italy known as fasci, groups similar to guilds or syndicates. According to Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's own account, the Fasces of Revolutionary Action were founded in Italy in 1915. In 1919, Mussolini founded the Italian Fasces of Combat in Milan, which became the National Fascist Party two years later. 

There's much more after that, but you can see what we mean. Quite literally, Fascist was the literal name of Mussolini's political party. Today, the leading authority notes, things are different:

Since the end of World War II in 1945, fascism has been largely disgraced. Few parties have openly described themselves as fascist; the term is often used pejoratively by political opponents.

Mussolini was a fascist in a way which Donald Trump isn't. Today, "fascist" is a fighting word. It's a continuation of war by the means of name-calling.

Is President Trump a fascist? In the most explicit, literal sense, actually no, he is not.

Is he inclined to speak, think and act in the ways which are associated with the last century's fascist movements? We'd have to say that he is so inclined, but that doesn't mean that we Blues are adopting a useful approach when we focus on the specific use of that specific street-fighting term.

In our view, this is a very dangerous time. We're inclined to assume that President Trump is dealing with serious medical issues. We assume he's dealing the types of medical issues our own Blue American press corps has agreed to refuse to discuss.

We Blues prefer to call him a liar, and we prefer to call him a fascist. On occasion, the H-bomb ("Hitler") may get thrown around. As Professor Brabender brilliantly said:

Where I come from, we only talk so long. After that, we start to hit.

At this site, we're fans of Goldberg's work. In this current column, we think she has allowed herself to perhaps remain caught in a trap.

Tomorrow, we'll go into a bit more detail. Of course, it's too late for any of this to make any difference. 

It's too late for any of this to matter. As Mussolini's ancient Romans were sometimes inclined to say, Alia iacta est.

Tomorrow: We Blues have been part of this too