the root cause is capitalism

anything but admitting that capitalism is working exactly as intended

Or they'll say "crony" capitalism as if that is somehow a qualitative difference.

Badguyism

Optics

We shouldn't concede defeats to the anti-communist witch hunters in any field, especially language. To do otherwise would be implicitly accepting their worldview as the correct one. Instead we should dismantle the weak supports for their anti-communism / anti-marxism in the first place, which isn't difficult for any person whose attention can be drawn to the mass suffering capitalism causes.

Meanwhile in the real world, even libertarian cato institute found that communism and socialism are popular among anybody who's not a fossil https://www.cato.org/blog/new-poll-nearly-half-americans-dont-know-what-americas-250th-celebrating

Not only that, but the numbers are rising since their poll last year https://www.cato.org/blog/young-americans-socialism-too-much-thats-problem-libertarians-must-fix

So, it's pretty clear that there is no optics problem in practice. The reality is that liberals are just opposed to socialism because they represent the left wing of fascism.

I sympathize with this argument, but think that it's relevance is mostly behind us. People will only believe what they're told to believe and hate what they're told to hate as long as they buy in to the ideology, as long as their ruling class provides enough comfort to keep them satisfied and distracted. Now that capitalism is failing to do that, people are explicitly looking for alternatives, and in a time like this it does us no favors to hide. Now is the best time to be an out and proud communist.