I was just thinking that since it was a Toal War with everyone either working for the government or fighting how close to communism was the U.S. Also how would rations play in to it?
I will not tackle your question of communism, but during WWII, the US was not at "Total War." I think it is important to realize that Total War in most societies is almost not possible. While Wikipedia is not a scholarly resource, what it says about WWII is a good representation in that the US saw an unprecedented level of military mobilization and everyone (including kids) were encouraged to participate, but it was not total war where every facet of the civilization and people is completely turned toward the war effort -- which is my understanding of what "Total War" means. There were still movies being made (some war movies, but other not). People still made time for leisure and made art not related to the war, etc...
I suppose it all depends on how you define Total War (it seems there are a number of definitions and I am curious how actual historians define it)