My experience on Lemmy has been that most users have a generally negative view of MLs , but 90% of the rants, memes, etc bashing another (non-maga) political side are MLs bashing “leftists” as opposed to the other way around.

I have been on lemmy for years, on multiple instances, including ones on the side of the .world liberals who preemptively defederate with the “tankie” instances. And the above statement is just wild to me. Most users having a generally negative view of MLs is highly dependent on which instance you’re a user on. Lemmy.ml, while not the largest, is still seen as a very central and kind of basic instance because it was the founding instance of lemmy in general and those founders are themselves Marxist Leninists. But if you’re on .world, then a core principle of your very instance is a frothing hatred of Marxists, and if you’re on one of the instances that blocks the same instances .world blocks, but sees mostly .world posts, you’re going to see a majority having a “genrally negative view of MLs.” If you are part of an instance that hasn’t blanket-blocked all the communist instances, the ones that can actually engage with, for example hexbear, you’re going to see a more representative slice of the fediverse that has a fair aount, though obviously not majority of MLs.

But this…

but 90% of the rants, memes, etc bashing another (non-maga) political side are MLs bashing “leftists” as opposed to the other way around.

Does not align with my experience at all on any of the instances. ML’s for the most part, are fine to go along and get along when it comes to other anticapitalist leftists. Look at @[email protected] for example. Highly prolific ML poster, but never punching left, always cam, even generous with whoever there is a disagreement with, and openly talks about having been an anarchist. Obviously one person is anecdotal and not necessarily representative, but I think in this case he very much is representative, since the other major ML power posters (especially here on .ml) tend that way as well. Hexbear on the other hand was well known for being on the more belligerent side, ready and willing to pick fights with libs. But hexbear is a left unity site that literally bans people for being sectarian. It is a majority ML instance but there are tons of anarchists, even as power posters there. And most of the anti-“tankie” instances never even considered federating with them, famously or infamously “preemptively defederating” in the case of .world.

On the other hand, the high amount of anti-“tankie” shit-flinging I see on lemmy is the most disappointing thing about it. Certain supposed leftist instances putting in anti-tankie clauses in their sign up forms, the nazi bars that form around the comms that are nothing but hating on “tankies” (the mwog comm being the obvious example), the frequent, tired old posts about “those damned aUtHoRiTaRiAn-loving tankies are so aUtHoRiTaRiAn,” like this very OP. No, ML’s are almost never the shit-flingers, rather it’s the other way around, ML’s constantly having to defend themselves against the trolls who scream “tankie” at them and think they’ve won an argument.

The only thing I can think of to reconcile your stated experience with my own is that you’re lumping in “liberals” with leftists. Because yes, as ML’s we very much deride liberals and look down at liberalism as the pathetic joke of an ideology that it is. We have no problem flinging shit at liberals because they are not leftists. But anarchists hate liberals too, and rightly so, so it is definitely not just the ML’s hating on liberalism. Any actual (anticapitalist) leftist can and should do so. We are punching right when we take liberals down a peg. Maybe MLs do it best, and that’s why you are under the mistaken belief that it’s “MLs bashing leftists,” maybe? It’s the only way I can think of for that not to be just a demonstrably inaccurate claim.