Calling others commies? It’s problematic; sure.
But there may be a rationale.
One way to designate someone as a communist despite their protests could be to define any leftist as a communist if he or she supports the psy-op subversion planks as explained by Yuri Bezmenov.
You may say you are, for example, a mere social democrat. But you also are obsessed with the issues that the Soviets materially and operationally advanced explicitly within their ranks as a means to export to the West to destroy your own country. So, despite any protest on your part, I’ll call you a commie.
Unless “Soviet” is accepted as fascistic and not commie.
But I think we should cede to extremists their own preferred terms, at least sometimes. Bear with me.
For example: I cede to anarchists of the anti-authoritarian violent-revolt variety — those who breed chaos and civil unrest, murder and mayhem and propaganda by the deed — with the term “anarchism,” and do not accept it as a term of peace. So, no matter how fascistic socialism and communism tend to become, I think we should give them their term, but with the pejorative twist: commie.
Commie is better than “communist,” actually, since communism has something to do with communes and communities, while “commie” is explicitly associated with the advance of subversion of liberal order.
I am a liberal, politically, above all else, I guess. And commies hate liberals. And liberals should hate commies.
twv