I’ve run across these terms several times, but without enough context to figure out what they mean. Could someone help me out, please?
ETA All of you are amazing! A huge thank you to everyone who responded, and an extra thank you to those who have provided links or explanations to further and/or related information. I am learning so much by reading all of these comments!
People complaining about “tankies” are exactly like the people that complain about the “woke”. The behaviour is two sides of the same coin, one performed by conservatives-only while the other is performed by both of them in unity against the only anti-capitalists.
Both are functionally meaningless, being undefined in any given situation so they can be thrown around in all places.
But there are people who identify as left-wing who will support China and Russia while downplaying their authoritarianism.
That’s not something being invented as a boogeyman. Anyone can go to lemmygrad.ml right now to see it in action.
You got down voted but you’re right. Tankie is the new form of commie after that fell out of favor. Western “champaign socialists” (another term I hate but it kinda applies here) use it to criticize people from countries that actually have had socialist experiments. Most of the leftists globally are not western and would fit under the standard western definition of tankie. But if you’ve never come close to overthrowing your own government, are you positioned all that well to criticize someone elses revolution while you sit comfortably in the imperial core?
Poor countries face challenges that rich countries can’t imagine often from western interference and revolutions are an ugly business. No Castro was not Santa Claus but he was a marked improvement over Batista.
Did you notice the huge amount of downvotes on any post in here that isn’t outright insults the so called “tankies”?
During the Red Scare, calling someone a “communist” was itself a death threat. Red Scare is now over and you have people openly declaring themselves communist, that’s why they had to come up with a new term. Tankie was their first attempt but they messed up by making it too restrictive, now they’re pushing a new term
“Woke.”
Example sentences: “Free healthcare is wokeism”
The above is a natural evolution since “Free healthcare is communism” would have the opposite effect if you keep repeating it over and over. At some point people will declare themselves “woke” and the right will come up with yet another new term.