Not to come off as a smug douche or anything, but if you want to talk about communism I think you need to have at least a rudimentary understanding of Asian history and politics, given that it's the one continent where communism has some actual long term traction and shows no signs of going away anytime soon. Just to start, you may want to look a bit at how each of the communist regimes that still exists there grew up in resistance to and still draws energy from the terrible legacy of Western colonialism, and how the realistic alternative to communism is not Western style liberal democracy but a rather vile form of ultranationalistic corporatism.
Did you actually read what I typed? My point was that both Putin and Xi face a ton of opposition at home, except that we rarely ever hear about this because it just so happens that most of the dissidents are Marxists who want a return to TRUE communism rather than the weird mix of state capitalism and nationalism that both countries have now. Instead we either assume that both countries are composed entirely of brainwashed drones who all think and act alike, or we keep giving a voice to the same two dozen people or so over there that genuinely believe that the best way forward for those countries is to bend the knee to the USA and copy how we do things. And just to go down your list of talking points:
Ukraine - EVERYTHING that's wrong with Russia is just as bad or worse in Ukraine, this is why the media doesn't really report on it anymore because there's no good vs. evil narrative to be had.
Belt and Road - Is wrong how exactly?
Trump - Are you really going to blame Russia for this? They might have helped him win the election but they aren't responsible for turning our country into a rat's nest of racism and xenophobia, we did that to ourselves.
Brexit - Again, how is Russia to blame for this? This was, as the Brits say, an own goal.
Press Assassinations - You know, if someone had just drone striked Roger Ailes or Rupert Murdoch, it would probably have been a net positive to the world given just how much damage their "news" organizations do on a regular basis.
Muslim genocide - Where is this happening? If you're talking about the Uighur camps there is no evidence that people are sent there to be killed.
Like this is why we can't have a mature conversation about socialism these days, every time it gets brought up people always try to bring up the absolute worst examples along with that old favorite, "well if you love communist countries so much why don't you just move there and see how much you like it?!" And especially the fact that the supposed left wing party in the US is more interested in attacking candidate who, if we're being honest, is a relatively mild socialist who isn't advocating for anything that would shake up the foundations of our economy in the way that a true Marxist would want, rather than focusing their energy on, I dunno, actually trying to beat Trump, is telling.