[Oatka]

Once the term becomes tainted, there is a rush to coin a new word in order to escape from that taint.

Communist, Socialist, Liberal, Progressive comes to mind for the same reason.

[generally]

I was thinking about that, too. Also related, communists used to be associated with the color red, which had a negative connotation, so the media used red for Republicans and it has stuck. It will be interesting to see what happens if the color blue becomes tainted as the democrat (loser) color. My bet is the media will try to switch again and claim it was just a random color assignment.