this post was submitted on 18 May 2024
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A subgroup of people on the left who believe in communism and mostly hold pro-Russia and pro-China views, while often having a "doomer" mentality in regard to the US.
Unfortunately, that has them made very susceptible to Russian propaganda, to the point where they're now doing the bidding of Russia and helping fascists rise to power.
The mechanisms are similar to MAGA. They've disconnected from classical media and their echo chambers censor posts that highlight positive developments in the US or posts critical of Russia/China. Once inside, their world view collides with the outside and it's hard to get out again. Similarly to Russians and Republicans, they vilify liberals ("liberals are complicit in xy", "scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds", "Marx warned liberalism inevitably leads to fascism", etc.).
On here, they're largely the people dissuading US Democratic Party voters from turning out, via "both sides bad" and recently via claim-to-purity (I'm sure you've encountered one of those "genocide joe" posts, which are kinda awkward, since tankies commonly support/deny China's genocide on the Uyghurs and Russia's genocide on Ukrainians).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tankie&ia=web
It's like when Republicans call everything to the left of them "woke," but the Democrat version.
Traditionally it meant Soviet apologists. Now it gets used more generally for the authoritarian left, where the horseshoe starts curving around.
It started as a name to use against militaristic anarchists that argued that only violence can save us.
Now it seems more like something MAGA uses obfuscate and confuse. It's very VERY similar to Pinko from the Macarthy era.
"I don't like what you say; but you used some keywords that match with this word I've heard other people use against you so I'll use it too"
Ultimately it's playground name calling when the other person isn't listening. (Or a bot or paid troll )
As an anarcho communist, I'm still voting for Biden because I'm not A FUCKING MORON.. (Not name calling. This is fact backed by evidence 😉) and this whole business annoys me.
Or you could just read a little about it.
It did not start with militant anarchists and has nothing to do with whether violence can save us or not. It was, and is still, about whether or not you support ML dictators and brush away their obvious failures.
There is no McCarthy Committee today looking for Tankie supporters in the US. There are people who make excuses for the genocides and repression of dictators who wore red, and there are people who don't want a movement to free humanity tied to the shackles of its worst attempts.
I use the term because I don't want my advocacy for a system designed to improve the lives of every person on earth, granting them maximal freedom, to be defined by the failures of men in the past who thought the only way to accomplish that was to murder and silence everything in the way of their personal pursuit of power.
Cool. Cool cool cool.
Far left version of MAGA. Same ideals and goals, funnily enough.
What ideals and goals might those be?
Basically someone that apologizes for war criminals.
Its existence stems from people defending the massacre at Tiannenmen square.
These days tankies appear in many forms. On Lemmy most commonly as people such as OP apologizing for Joe Biden being complicit in Genocide.
I dont know if you or the person you picked it up from made this up but that is not the origin of the term.
Tankies are pro authoritarian, and always have been.
Linkerbaan believes the murder of civilians is 'targeted resistance' because the civilians were under a regime supported by the West. They're not arguing in good faith.