Memes

I can't speak to the rest of it, but about Romanians who "would have voted for Ceausescu": they overwhelmingly tend to be village hicks or people directly hurt by the mad scramble during the post-soviet period where communist party officials sold themselves everything that wasn't nailed down for nothing.

It's also worth mentioning that PSD is overwhelmingly the old communist party under a new name, and they are despised by a large number of Romanians.

EDIT: Also, to address the "better off" part: yes, that is true. If you were white, male and ethnically Romanian. Minorities like the Hungarians and Roma had a really bad time. To be a "good communist woman" you were expected to be a baby factory to increase the population and denied birth control.