> I promise I wouldn’t argue
Fair, to be clear I wouldn’t actually call the US a communist country either. I would say it’s more communist than modern day China, granted that’s a low bar.
What’s IMO worth considering is just how much more communist it is today than in 1776. 22 million Americans work directly for the government (fed, state, local, post office etc), that rises significantly when you include research grants, government contractors, farm subsidies, etc. K-12 education, Qualified immunity (1967), banking laws, etc the government is both getting a stranglehold on the economy and continues extending its reach.
We are closer to nominally capitalist than I think anyone wants to admit and in ways both parties quietly agree with. That isn’t to say we need “smaller government” just understanding of what’s happening.
Communism is not "when the government does stuff", and "the more the government does, the more communist it is".
Basic government functions like the military aren’t communist.
Communism however is when the government does everything. Thus there’s a threshold where more government control is more Communist.
40% of US corn is turned into ethanol not because the free market thinks it’s a good idea but because the government does. That’s Communism in action inside the US, it’s inefficient central planning that fits right into the kind of stupid economic decisions you’d see in the USSR. https://afdc.energy.gov/data/widgets/10339