I just took a cursory glance at this Gadsen flag’s history and meaning, and it’s indeed removed from the bunch of wackos wanting to throw slurs around that co-opted it.

left-wing authoritarians started governments and called it communism

Tell me about it… It’s infuriating to be automatically associated with regimes that were just repressive hegemonies with a red facade; meanwhile, anti-authoritarian communist figures like Rosa Luxemburg are simply ignored, or worse, put into the same dirty bag.