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.
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.