It's helpful to recognize that the family of things commonly called "Marxism" is not a singular school of political economy. Over the 20th century, Karl Marx's

It's helpful to recognize that the family of things commonly called "Marxism" is not a singular school of political economy. Over the 20th century, Karl Marx's original theories and philosophy have constantly evolved, branched off, and swapped DNA with other areas of thought... The easy examples are Leninsm, Trotskyism, Maoism, postmodernism, critical theory, but there a thousands on thousands of identifiable influences that Marxism has left on politics, economics, history, literature, art, game design, language, philosphy, and more. It's hard to imagine many humanities fields without their modern Marxist stripes, so deep runs the inheritance. This part isn't a conspiracy theory, it's a well documented and well-studied phenomenon. Marx and his intellectual descendants have massively shaped the modern world. And that includes the Western-aligned societies that stridently rejected Communism during the Cold War. Even the conspiracy theory has evolved over time... the modern versions you hear about on Fox News have changed a bit from the old Nazi stuff.