You’d think a hegemony with a 100-years tradition of upkeeping democracy against major non-democratic players, would have some mechanism that would prevent itself from throwing down it’s key ideology.
Is it really that the president is all that decides about the future of democracy itself? Is 53 out of 100 senate seats really enough to make country fall into authoritarian regime? Is the army really not constitutionally obliged to step in and save the day?
I’d never think that, of all places, American democracy would be the most volatile.
The US government is not (and has never been) against fascism for ideological reasons. Fascism and American-style democracy go hand in hand quite well. Our government fought a war against fascists because they disrupted the global trade status quo and threatened US economic prosperity and that of our primary trade partners.
Technically even the time we did it only officially after the fascists declared war on us first. It was all lend lease, etc before that.
You’re totally right, the US government and business elite were content to make money from both sides of the conflict right up until Dec 7, 1941 and the subsequent DoWs from Germany and Italy (once the US declared on Japan). They may have favored Britain and France in trade/indirect support somewhat before that, but that was more a result of historical diplomatic and economic ties, rather than any issue with the German political system.