I got half way through it and then decided that I didn't have enough knowledge of the world in which it was written to really judge it fairly. But here's a few thoughts.
It mentions destroying the family as it's an instrument of oppression. What the fuck does that even mean? This one is so preposterous that I assume I must be missing something.
Ooh that one freaked me out too when I first read it. But if you read some of the things Engels says about families and how the modern western family came to exist, it makes more sense and it's not as scary as it sounds. The family as used in Marx's and Engels' works is a specific structure, dependent on marriage (which is partly about passing down wealth), the children being viewed as instruments to gather wealth, subordinating the members to the authority of the father, etc. Marx does not mean he wants to destroy emotional ties between families or to split them apart or whatever. That's why he specifies it by clarifying that he is talking about the bourgeois family. And of course he also says that he is in support of social education as opposed to home education which is the standard today anyways (schools). In a sense Marx is saying that it is the bourgeoisie which is destroying family.
Many times he mentions that capitalism has made goods and service much cheaper. But he phrases it like it's a bad thing. It strikes me as out of touch with reality to not appreciate why making things we need to survive cheaper and more available is a good thing.
Where was that specifically? Because he obviously doesn't think it is bad for things to be easily available, he is extremely supportive of ending scarcity in all of his writings. I don't really remember him saying something like that.
The world he describes is one I'm unfamiliar with. America doesn't fit his description of class struggle all that well.
Class struggle in modern America has been bluntened significantly compared to other countries, largely because of various ideological reasons. However it's not that it isn't there, it's just not as obvious, though it seems like it's getting more acute more recently.
I feel that applying the Communist Manifesto on the society I live in is a lot like applying the ideas of Ayn Rand. Rand's point of view might make sense in Russia. It's nonsensical here.
Well, the CM is not exactly something you apply anyways, it was a text Marx and Engels wrote to rile people up for a conference of the communist party, it's not really a political program.
This last point isn't really a criticism. Looking at some of things Marx proposes, I think he sort of won. The peasants have a lot of workplace protections and a social safety net that Marx seems to vaguely propose. It makes me think that communism and capitalism really aren't mutually exclusive.
You're not wrong that a lot of things were won in subsequent years (which is why I said part of it is pretty irrelevant), but also communism and capitalism are obviously very mutually exclusive. The mode of production didn't change substantially, it's just that certain concessions were made.
*edit. Oh. It also mentions abolishing private property. How does that even work?
That's one of the most common misunderstandings. There is a difference between personal and private property. Your PC is personal property. Your toothbrush is personal property. Your books? Personal property. They're yours. No one will mess with your toothbrush. But maybe you own an apartment and you rent it to someone. Maybe you own a factory, or a farm, or a mine. These things are private property. They are capital, they are property which produces things and/or generates profit. This is the kind of property that will be abolished, because profit will be (eventually, in what Marx calls the higher stage of communism) abolished, and the people as a whole will control production and distribute resources produced from each according to their ability to each according to their need.