Nicolás Maduro /s

I guess it really depends on what you think "most prominent" means here. There's politically prominent, socially prominent, etc.

The girl reading this

what do you mean by prominent?

as in effective? today none virtually because thats the whole point of the US, they are fervently anti communist and kill communists with motion

as in famous? the black panthers but they are heavily sanitized and the wider population does not register that they are communists and parenti

It is hard. If we are talking academically, after Parenti died I'd say Vijay Prashad maybe? He is doing a lot at https://thetricontinental.org/, writes really good books, and is probably the most public marxist in the US.

Donald Trump /s

Black Panther Party members like Fred Hampton and Huey P. Newton, and Michael Parenti.

If you include revisionists and reactionaries, maybe Noam Chomsky. He was the first "leftist" USian that I heard about.

I wish RevTh0t and Lady Izdihar were more well-known.

i would say Michael Prysner, Abby Martins, or Claudia de la Cruz. Boots Riley maybe, but thats more hollywood fame

Gabriel Rockhill.

Well they're kinda hard to find, not only because of low numbers but also because of how the media+policing apparatus operates. If somebody is a watered down populist, they may be able to get famous and remain that way, and all is good. But if they are a principled marxist-leninist, they will tend to face media blackout, or slander and violent repression if they can't be ignored. I mean, Bernie Sanders is a milquetoast soc dem and they still did a mix of media blackout and hit pieces on him when he was trying to run for president.

Tupac Shakur

George Archibald Reginald Woodpecker Flats III, 89, from Wichita, Kansas who was born directly from Stalin's womb and has the Manifesto tattooed on the inside of his eyelids.

They say he's never paid taxes in his life, is wanted for treason in every state except Hawaii, and has a lover in every city in the country.

They say he personally hunted down Gary Webb's killer over a period of six years and beat the man to death with a flip-flop.

Rumor is he won't die until the eve of the revolution, during which all Canada geese will permanently flee North America; never to return.

Boots Riley

Chainslayer my goat!

Maybe the African people's socialist party, assuming they aren't all thrown in prison for being "Russian agents".

There are still black panthers imprisoned since the 90s.

The general expectation in these threads is that nothing less than a reincarnated Lenin is acceptable, and any realistic candidate is a dirty liberal for whatever reason. Anyway... For the majority of Americans (the PoV that counts in this case, materialistically speaking), Zhoran Mamdani is the most prominent socialist. For a smaller part Piker is, wether you like it or not. And since they think marxist, socialist and communist are exactly the same things... You have your answer.