I’m not American myself and this was just explained by a few American friends of mine who were formerly in the SRA and even had leadership roles in their chapters; one was a demsoc and two were anarchists. In my own country there are almost no MLs; they came to power back in the 60s and 70s as part of our national liberation but then they just ended up being power hungry, as all MLs eventually become (or were in the first place). Nobody has faith in them anymore so anybody who is leftist is pretty much anarchist or at least demsoc.
And anybody who praises the government of North Korea has absolutely zero moral high ground on which to stand