A tankie is, broadly, someone who wants to effect left-wing ideology using authoritarian methods. It originally referred to those who defended the USSR using tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution, but it could be aptly used to describe those who defend China’s actions in Tiananmen Square. It’s rightfully used as a perjorative, since authoritarian enforcement is antithetical to leftism, particularly communism.

Tankies are hypocrites who didn’t understand their self-proclaimed ideologies. If someone’s idea of communist praxis is lining up dissenters for the firing squad, you’re dealing with a tankie.

I’m a tankie. What tankie is supposed to mean is someone who blindly supports anything anyone does so long as they claim to be communist and wave a red flag. There’s maybe a handful of edgy teens who actually fit that description, but the way it’s actually used is to punch left at anyone who supports anything a socialist country has ever done, or who is insufficiently patriotic/nationalistic and is willing to consider things from an internationalist perspective.

If you say for example that Cuba under Castro had a successful literacy program, then there are people who will accuse you of being a tankie just for that. Because it gets used this way, some people like myself chose to reclaim the insult and wear it proudly.

Generally, the actual term for most “tankies” would be Marxist-Leninist. But I actually prefer tankie because it’s a more general, big tent label. It’s used so broadly that even anarchists can be called tankies. It’s basically like “woke” where it doesn’t actually have any real meaning.

Militant leftist, in the most basic sense.

But anti-leftists tend to co-opt the term to replace ‘fascist’ or ‘nazi’ in their discourse.

People that are happy to run people over in tanks to force their communist version of society on everyone else.

I am by no means an expert, but the test that was explained to me is that if you look at the famous tianamen square picture of the guy holding grocery bags facing down a line of tanks, and then proceed to side with the line of tanks, then you’re a tankie.

When I say that I am not an expert, what I actually mean is that I’m a random idiot from the internet, so don’t take anything I say as gospel truth.

I’ve only been on lemmy for a few months, and I’ve never heard the term tankie on any other platform. My understanding is that a tankie is a militant supporter of communism, who completely disregards (or is in support of) how every time it’s ever actually been done it turns into an authoritarian dictatorship (or something similarly unpleasant to live under).

My own biases exposed: I am an american, and most of what I know I learned in the absolutely fucked american public education system, which says communism = evil, because of the red scare a while back.

If you do some googling, there’s a wikipedia article on the subject. I’ve forgotten most of the content of that article shortly after I read it, I should look at it again and maybe it will stick this time.

Most folks are dumber than a chickens.

Dracula is cool as fuck tho.

People think Trump will eventually make things so bad that the average man will salivate at the chance for Socialist rule…

What will actually happen if you get a nasty concoction made from a pinch of Handmaid’s Tale with a dash of Holocaust 2…

And the average man won’t care, as long as the trains run on time and they owned the libs… and if the trains don’t run on time, they probably have libs to blame.

Consider me another one of your trans friends. If Trump gets elected I’m probably gonna die in a concentration camp. Don’t do that to me, don’t do that to them. I’m begging you for my life.

I am trans and not voting for Biden. I refuse to sacrifice Palestinians for my own safety or the safety of my loved ones. All the stuff people say now about them being an acceptable sacrifice or there being nothing they can do about it, that’s what they’ll be saying about us tomorrow. Solidarity between marginalized groups is the only viable strategy for long term survival.

I hate being used as a rhetorical token to make people feel better about selling out another vulnerable group.

Yes, I see how you’re protecting me when you elect the party that would arrest me for being a “Public Danger” because of the fact that I’m trans.

Go educate yourself, and then you can join the adult discussions.

What vulnerable people are dems going after?

I actually had my local Socialist Party USA chapter kick me out, ban me from their facebook, and publicly announce that I’m a rape apologist because I wouldn’t tell people to support an openly transphobic “Vaccines Cause Autism” Green Party candidate over Joe Biden.

Then support the PSL. I work with the Green party to improve it, because that’s how democracy works. It’s okay you don’t understand that.

Then do something about it instead of complain. I am, what are you doing? You vote for corruption.

Aye. The timestamp I linked specifically talks about something talked about in this thread, which is that the DNC would rather have the far right win than move left.