this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2024
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Tankie is definitely a newer term that hasn't hit the mainstream zeitgeist, I already see it thrown around on lemmy like how conservatives call everything "woke", just a matter of time imo.
To clarify, the other two are usually right wing smears, tankie appears to be a left wing smear to those further left. I know the idea behind it is fake leftists who are actually just Authoritarions but... Still lol that's how it goes with labels a lot of the time, especially the more niche it is
Tankie has been a pretty common phrase at least since I was in college. I thought they were the folks who carried water for authoritians like Mao and Stalin. It's more specific than 'woke' or even 'liberal', in my experience it's more akin to calling someone maga or antivax; it confers specific positions. I've had friends who proudly identified with the term. Unless it's changed in meaning recently and I didn't get the memo.
I see it thrown around on lemmy a LOT, just like how woke gets thrown around by the right, I'm not saying it doesn't have an actual "true" meaning, just that (like most labels as I mentioned and particularly those that are more specific/niche initially) it eventually gets bastardized and thrown around with the original specific meaning lost.
That's because there are a LOT of tankies on lemmy, specifically lemmy.ml. In many threads anything slightly critical of Russia or China will get deleted and the users banned. It may have other meanings but that's what it means here: people carrying water for authoritarian regimes while LARPing as leftists.
You have to be self aware enough to know it also gets thrown around like any other label incorrectly. It's just a way to ignore someone else's point and bandwagon.