What's your definition of tankie?
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/60070513
This is something I always get in arguments about, whenever I use the word tankie hexbear and grad users argue that its just a term for socialists.
I've always just used it to referr to authoritarian communists, i.e, people who unironically support modern russia, and/or oppose ukraine, and think nothing happened to the uyghurs.
Tankies I define as Authoritarian state apologists, who support authoritarian states without any critical examination of that belief.
Thats a great definition, thanks.
Toss in some communism and you have yourself a Tankie
Or just communist vibes.
Boot licker of the authoritarian empire with communism flavour and hater of the western democratic country.
Authoritarian "communist" who thinks killing and oppressing people is totally okay just as long as they're the ones doing it for "the right reasons". They think the West is inherently evil and bad and must be destroyed, and the East is flawless and good and must be defended at any and all costs. Dissent will not be tolerated.
Don't let them fool you, they are not leftists. They're red fascists.
Putin’s useless idiots.
Socialists in name only.
Authoritarian-lovers, as long as the authority isn’t western.
I use it specifically for communists and socialists that lean too much on figures and less so on ideas. Specifically figures that use authoritarianism to achieve their position. No matter how you paint things, I will never agree with the idea of work/re-education camps. If you can look at that and be okay with it, I’m curious what mental gymnastics were required to get there.
For the record, I’m a socialist but I look forward not backwards. We can achieve these things without having to use authoritarian tactics.
Nice instance.
They will argue it's "just a term for socialists" because they don't like being pointed out as actually being pro-authoritarian. The entire leftist look of a tankie is just a smokescreen for the authoritarianism.
Some are now going full mask-off and openly supporting authoritarianism instead of going for plausible deniability. Had one earlier tell me leftists are supposed to be the ones oppressing the capitalists and fascists...
Would you believe, thats the reason why I made this post.
A tribalist whose ingroup is self-proclaimed leftists. Tankies are conservatives. It is a worldview where they base their moral judgements of actions completely on the predetermined morality of the person carrying those actions out.
People in this mode tend to have right-wing politics, because it maps really well to saying 'well somebody's gotta be king.' But the same way right-wing assholes don't actually mean they want states' rights or small government, these left-wing assholes are only parroting slogans to justify whatever their side did now. They're just shuffling cards.
But they are completely serious when they insist all leftists are like them, because they think everybody does this. They don't know there's any other way to be. We're the idiots for not getting behind our guys every single time - like we forgot they're our guys.
People who live inside tanks.
People who defend modern day Russia, and the many terrible things they do.
Most notably blaming NATO, or "US imperialism" for the multiple countries being invaded.
Yo mama
I'll let myself out