national-socialist are one movement which is fascist, they are by far not the only one. (Nazis are fascist with socialist paint coat).
The US never had (internally) a problem with nazis, I think. But it does have a problem with white supremacist. It also does have a problem with religious extremist, most times Christian based. Both of this groups have quite a bit of overlap and have often strong fascist tendencies.
And sure California might be one of the US states better of. Tbh. especially with the last statement I was more thinking about some other US states.
The US never had (internally) a problem with nazis
Colloquially, this is what everyone understands when using the term fascist, but it's not quite in line with the history. 'Fascism' is a pejorative dog whistle, when people hear it they think "enemy" - because in WWII the Italian and German governments were fascist.
In fact, fascism, as I understand it, developed as a "third way" on the European continent. It was a rejection of capitalism as dominated by wealthy US, English interests, and of Communism. It's interesting that it developed in an area of Europe geographically juxtaposed in the middle of two powerful capitalist and communist fronts. Fascism was a reaction to domination by foreign power - so yes, naturally it's nationalistic. It also has a component of strong integration of nation and economy. The fasces is a binding together, metaphorically a combination of social, political, and economic institutions. Initially, it was an attempt to strengthen the nation, to reclaim power over the national destiny, and make good for the people of that country.
Of course, in hind site, we can see that some truly awful deeds were committed by some truly awful people, and we should be vigilant to prevent that from happening again. Unfortunately, it's a hard thing to predict, and even harder to prevent. It of course becomes harder if the name of fascism is misused in partisan political contexts because the nuance and history of the term is quickly lost.
>In fact, fascism, as I understand it, developed as a "third way" on the European continent.
Correct.
As you wrote, we naturally associate fascism with the Nazis invading neighboring countries and committing genocide, but its behavior was aberrant. Half of Europe was fascist/right-wing authoritarian in some form between the wars, including Poland, Austria, and Hungary, none of which started a European war; Italy only started one in Ethiopia. To put another way, Hitler's extreme anti-Semitic and anti-Slav attitudes were independent of his calling himself a fascist.
Mussolini in Italy invented fascism—the bundle of sticks and everything—but the "meh" attitude Italians have about fascism today (complete with Mussolini's granddaughter's longtime political career) is because the Italian variety of totalitarianism was never anything like the Nazis or Soviet Communists in its cruelty. Italian fascism always had substantial Jewish leadership and popular support, and Mussolini imposed anti-Jewish laws in the late 1930s only after substantial pressure from Hitler—by then clearly with the whip hand in the two countries' relationship—to do so.
These are both true in, at most, the same sense that it is true that North Korea is a democratic republic.
Anyway this is why Nazis while mainly being far right managed to gather supporters from the far left. And especially in the beginning there where decision done which looked quite socialist, through in retrospective where basically always ware preparations.
I would say saying Nazis where socialists is quite wrong, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a bit of socialism their politics eve if just for pretentious reasons.
Through it also should be noted that the current political spectrum differs quite a bit from back then, neo-nazies normally have very clearly nothing to do with socialist and the far left has not many people which are extreme socialists but also nationalist either as far as I know.