But in terms of “folks I’ve been reading that seem to have decent takes:”

• Roderic Day of redsails.org has put out some really good pieces in my opinion.
• Peter Coffin has a mixture of good takes and bad ones. He’s stubborn on holding onto transphobia – or at least, transphobia-adjacent comments – and his “LGBTQ+ is a bourgeois ideology” take, which, so far as I can tell, may be one of those “okay, ‘technically correct’ under your framing of it, but thoroughly counter-productive seeing as literally nobody else frames the issue in this way.” Unfortunately, he’s recommended stuff from PatSoc Caleb Maupin before too. Basically, I see potential in Coffin, clouded by problems.
• What I have read of Xi Jinping – which isn’t much – has been solid.

So yeah, if you’re looking for heroes, I wouldn’t hold your breath. But there’s life to be found in the world of Marxism.