Who makes that distinction?
… literally anyone who thinks about it? The US Communist Party is one party, there are plenty of other parties that identify as communist. You don’t have to be called “The Communist Party” to be communist.
New Afrikan Black Panther Party
Party for Socialism and Liberation
Communist parties aren’t popular at all, but they’re far from banned. There are multiple such parties.
That’s literally an argument against anything that exists at all. That’s kind of how laws work, linguistics is complicated so everyone’s interpretation is different, and many people in power intentionally misinterperet laws. But as it stands, communist parties are not banned. What you speak of is a big “what if”, and currently you saying communism as a whole is banned is simply wrong, even as an oversimplification.
It is a big stretch to turn “Parties other than the two largest ones in the country have considerable cultural, legal, and logistical obstacles to being able to participate in high-level American politics, and an unenforced law from 70 years ago banned one specific communist party before most of the provisions being repealed by congress and the law being overturned in state courts as unconstitutional” into “Communism is banned in the United States”. There is no legal way to criminally prosecute someone on the basis of them being a communist, or belonging to any specific communist party at all, in the modern day.
I’m not trying to be condescending or anything btw.