The ACP presents itself as a new, ideologically pure group, the sole heir to the Leninist tradition in the United States, uncompromising in its rejection of bourgeois politics. But looking at what the ACP actually says and who it tries to reach reveals a party whose politics and messaging are nationalist, chauvinist, and reactionary.

I have my doubts about the material/populational power of the ACP -- I find them more of an online blowhard community, but if the past few years have taught me anything it is that we should not underestimate the destructive potential of weird niche online hate groups. Just because they are more correct than the modern CPUSA on issues of Russia, China, and anti-liberalism does not excuse their reactionary tendencies around race, gender, and religion. Relating them to the historical recurring scab that is "national bolshevism" is quite apt, imo.

The ACP split from the CPUSA over what it called liberal compromises, yet ended up with an ideology that is more fringe and less coherent than what it left behind. A rejection of left-wing coalitions in favor of far-right ones was intended to expand a base, but instead dramatically narrowed it. Support for far-right bourgeois figures is masked as outreach to the working class, but it is capitulation to the class interests those figures serve.
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The ACP is a movement that cannot be considered communist in any meaningful sense. The closest they get is patriotic socialists, in the same vein as National Bolsheviks, reactionaries pretending to be communists to steal the name of a tradition they have effectively abandoned.