With the collapse of the Soviet Union and China's conversion to capitalism in everything but name, communism had to take on a new meaning or else become irrelevant. And we can't just retire a word that had represented the national enemy for 50 years that easily!
It stopped having a useful meaning when the Soviet Union pretended they were communist and not a totalitarian regime. It was used incorrectly then and it's laughable how they use it in the US now.