My father remembers communists as a very real threat to his life, the Stasi of the DDR could have killed him as he made multiple illegal crossings of the iron curtain.
I was born after the german reunification so that stuff was “just” history to me growing up, but as I got older I got to learn more of how miserable life was under Honecker from history books and first hand accounts and why people would even risk their lives to cross the border to get into non-communist nations in the first place.

Well for my father communists were a very real threat to his life, the Stasi of the DDR could have killed him.
I was born after the german reunification so that stuff was “just” history to me growing up, but as I got older I got to learn more of how miserable life was under Honecker from history books and first hand accounts.
I get the feeling that communist means a very different thing to you based on how you phrased that post.

My father said something to the tune of: “If you are under 30 and not a communist then you are heartless and if you are over 30 and still a communist then you have succumbed to wishful thinking.”
When I was young I found that take annoyingly cynical, but I have been forced to look at that statement with reluctant agreement as I got older…
Is it cynical of me to vote for someone I share no ideological foundation with?
Maybe, but I have to be pragmatic sometimes, and the left is the only place where my political concerns are not ignored.