It doesn’t help that the communists here usually deny the communist autocracies of the past as “not real communism, this time it’ll work bro trust me,” and when you press them on their beliefs you learn they find killing political dissidents not only acceptable, but they’re excited to line you up against the wall “the second they get a chance.”

And the milder, actually center leftists like you describe, deny the existence of Group A above outright instead of saying “yeah those guys are crazy, we’re not like them,” but then turn around and count the supposed nonexistent Group A as their compatriots against “the nazis.” (But when Group A’s genocide takes off guess who will quickly fail a purity test and be shot just after all the nazis and anarchists, yup, it’s Group B here.)

America’s left needs to realize that people like those represented by lemmy’s own tankie triad are real, are “left” not just “right playing dress up,” and are dangerous people to them as well and to normal people, not “just the nazis.” It reminds me of Trump not denouncing the KKK because they supported him, but you can disavow people who unironically support the Holodomor and want to do it again to their kulaks while also pushing for social policies that benefit the people.