as communism constitutionally guarantees people material services, aid, and standards of living rather than capitalism's nebulous "freedom" which turns social blights (in this case ecological collapse) into markets it stands to reason that a communist state would prioritize staving off an economic collapse so that it would not have to shield it's citizens from the crisis via expenditures.
My lib parents showed me some of Mulayneys recent comedy (on his show?) and it relied on ample Soviet bashing so I fully am prepared for him to go full reactionary turbo-lib.
Pricing and value comparison between models has never really been my thing. My gut instinct says to buy a model that is about to be discontinued that has good reviews. Not sure if your partner needs it to do anything specific - if they just browse the web then I wouldn't pay more than $400 and you could probably skate by on a Chromebook for cheaper at that point. If they want a discrete GPU, then prepare to suffer the
Demoralization is their sharpest blade, comrade.
Hang in there.