One has to ignore so much to argue that the US supports fascism at this point.

Let's make a quick and easy distinction then. The current administration and a majority of elected officials support fascism. Period. Neoliberal capitalism has many inherent contradictions, one of which is freedom of capital vs freedom of a person. The political establishment chose and has continue to legislate under freedom of capital. And given that fascism easily aligns itself with capital through corruption, deregulation of corporations, destruction of workers rights, crushing unions, dismantling public services and institutions seen as "competition" I think it's lazy and dismissive to flatten the argument that the US supports fascism when the governmental institutions have welcomed with, both directly and indicrectly. The American government, via its elected representatives (those who have been chosen to represent America on a national and global stage), aka "America" to the global audience, supports fascism. And by proxy, the voters who did not do the due diligence or who directly supported these representatives allowed them into office to represent the rest of America. Both can be said to be in support of fascism, whether it be the administration and representatives or the voters who provided their support to elect said administration and representatives, whether they regret it now or not.

People are largely powerless and their precarious economic situation has prevented wider action, but we've seen some pretty spectacular examples of the fact that people purposefully did not vote for fascism, particularly in LA, Portland, Chicago, and Minneapolis. The pickets in Minneapolis were openly composed of bi-partisans too

Yes, we know, and we've been attempting to build alternatives to the systems and structures that remove our power. However, nonprofit capture is also harmful to these movements when they stifle revolutionary fervor, as is currently going on with the larger action groups as they prioritize maintaining funding over direct action and potentially run afoul of law enforcement. It's assimilation. I'm not saying people haven't fought back, but really analyze what has been accomplished through picketing, protesting, etc? What laws have we had written? What material gains or concessions were obtained? Because to me it looks like ICE is back in force, still murdering in the streets.

you had people who voted for Donald saying on live TV that they didn't vote for masked thugs to be chasing down second graders. (I'm paraphrasing, but that was a quote.)

I'm glad people are finally waking up. It's just very late into the game when we said all of this years ago that this would happen. But we were told we were crazy, that's going to far. Our real issue is that we were right too soon. And no one gives credit to that and listens to us now given that we predicted all of this. And most of these people only wake up when they are directly affected. If that is the case, the argument can ABSOLUTELY be made that America supports fascism. What's the point if you regret it in hindsight? Authoritarians dismantle institutions and lock out mechanisms of correction. Again, I'm glad they're waking up, but they really need to do some self reflection on how we ended up here.

The fact of the matter is that around 30% of people tend to support fascism. And that tends to be because they cannot deal with ambiguity in their lives. Not having an answer to something causes a fear in them and the flock to any kind of answer to satiate that fear. Authoritarians use that weakness to fill the void with answers. That there are corrupt elites in washington, that immigrants are stealing jobs, that your kids are turning trans and dont want to talk to you anymore, blah blah. These are all lies, but they are simple "answers" to the economic and social precarity that existed and no one was providing simple answers for (and sometimes, there are no simple answers, life is complex. But humans love their simple answers.)

And as we've seen, 30% is enough to elect the National Socialists, and it was enough to elect Trump. America, especially those with political and corporate power, unequivocally support fascism, whether out of fear, anxiety, bigotry, or just fiscally. We've got actual Nazis, but liberals support fascists all the same under neoliberal capitalism. Hence the saying, scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.

On a macro level, you've seen Donald's candidates lose almost every election in 2025 and 2026. His only good news in elections has been in primaries, and Republicans along with Dem collaborators are so incredibly unpopular that we might get a couple dozen socialists elected in November. These election losses have come in both red and blue states and largely in districts Donald won in 2024.

Yes, and I'm happy to see it. However, this is just the start and is a reaction to the support of fascism, not a dismissal of it. People are finally being affected by the fascist policies negatively and are rebuking it. If the fascists had done a better job of hiding job losses, of subsidizing gas prices and inflation, you probably would not see this same outpouring of support for socialist candidates. There are 2 upcoming factors we have yet to see play out as well. 1 being that establishment politicians are seeing the winds and are starting to attempt mimicing socialist candidates and their rhetoric. Look at Kamala meeting with Zohran and Newsom saying we've got to tax billionaires while he kills a billionaire tax. And 2 it's looking very likely that the fascist will do what fascists do and attempt to rig and/or block the elections. What will Americans do in either of these cases? Will they rebuke the "rules" and fix things? Will they be savvy enough to vote for the real left wing candidates over the left sounding ones (look at Graham Platner for a recent example.) Or will they go along with the fascist institutions and rulings?

People in 2024 voted for affordability and a more strict immigration policy. (Not to be confused with a Gestapo rebrand.) The US does not support fascism, and I think that's self-evident at this point.

Parenti's point isn't that Americans consciously embrace fascism as a label, it's that the material conditions fascism produces, surveillance infrastructure, ethnic targeting, concentration of executive power, corporate-state merger, etc etc, are tolerated or actively welcomed by a significant portion of the population precisely because those conditions don't feel particularly horrible to people who aren't the targets. That's a more precise claim than "Americans voted for fascism."

You're also attempting to be dismissive with the Gestapo rebrand parenthetical. Whatever you call it, the infrastructure exists as being used. Human beings are being kidnapped, imprisoned, and killed.

On a macro level, you’ve seen Donald’s candidates lose almost every election in 2025 and 2026. His only good news in elections has been in primaries, and Republicans along with Dem collaborators are so incredibly unpopular that we might get a couple dozen socialists elected in November. These election losses have come in both red and blue states and largely in districts Donald won in 2024.

which candidates?