Communism has killed millions around the world, yet it's ideology is growing on the left as well.

That's part of the problem. There's such focus by the left on Nazis and by the right on Communists that the overall capacity to form a consensus and negotiate between the two groups is significantly hindered.

The majority of both sides is not extremist, but ignoring each other is amplifying those extreme groups.

Biden is about a billion miles away from Communism.

In Germany he would be a boring conservative.

This insinuation that the Democratic Party makes the world in some sense safer for Communists is blatant absurdity.

The reverse – the Republican Party and especially Trump making the world a safer place for Nazis – is very true. Nazis can feel encouraged and supported in what they do by Trump.

Obviously even Trump, however shambolic, manages to build up some level of plausible deniability there.

(All of this says someone who, yeah, is totally up for some Marxist ideas. Don’t worry, I’m not an American.)

The difference being, of course, that the left hasn't been in power for four years. One side of this discourse is based on projection and conjecture, the other on observable behaviour. I think that's one reason why I'm not seeing a huge appetite for finding the middle ground in some parts of the left: they need to see that the reasonable folks on the right will repudiate and, where necessary, punish the extremists they see as having been encouraged and given a free rein, rather than continue to give them a political home. I think the core of it is that with the extremists on the right wing (whether that's swastika-flashing Actual Nazis or the radical theocrats) they've actually had power, whether in the form of boots-on-the-ground "very fine people" that the police turn a blind eye to or actual elected/appointed office, whereas "card-carrying communist" describes an uninfluential fringe of Democrats who won't now be able to achieve very much. Because that repudiation hasn't happened yet, some would view anyone who unflinchingly supported the Republicans over the last four years as complicit in the actual, demonstrated, real actions that the extremists performed as at least an enabler, and possibly worse. Until that gets fixed, and mainstream Republicans own that, I don't see them moving.

Unfortunately, if McConnell is still in the driving seat in the Senate, form says we should expect political logjams, which won't help win anyone over either, and contrition isn't a trait I'd expect to magic itself into being purely on the basis of the presidential result.

I won’t say there are no communists on the left, but they are very few in number. Even most people that call themselves “socialist” really mean something more like capitalist with a string safety net. Any communists in the left are a threat to exactly nobody right now. They don’t really have many opportunities to forcefully take central control of the means of production.

Unfortunately Nazis can do their work retail, they don’t need to take over government to do real harm individually.