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this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2025
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Asklemmy
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Unless your politics are to the right of Joe Biden, you're going to get called a tankie.
Hyperbole, I think.
Somewhat, yes. More accurate would probably be anyone to the left of AOC
That doesn't seem true though, most actual leftists don't like tankies and the people on Lemmy complaining about tankies seem to mostly be leftists themselves. Tankies are like LaRouchites, no one takes them seriously because the things they profess tend to be silly and they usually have that obnoxious College freshman master-debater energy. It's not a left or right thing.
The whole point is that there isn't really any clear cut difference between "tankies" and "actual leftists" because it's a pejorative term that each person using it defines differently based on their own personal politics. Is critical support for Vietnam tankie? Cuba? Makhnovshchina? Ukraine? The Nordic Model? The Black Panthers? You'll never get consistent answers from people yelling about tankies.
Ironically, this better describes the people who rail against "tankies" better than it describes anyone else.
It gets thrown around too much honestly, if it was just people simping for authoritarian regimes, sure, but it really does get tossed toward anyone "too left".
I’ve been here a while, but I might need some help here. Everyone left of Biden is a tankie? Am I understanding you correctly?
Well, ultimately tankie just means "person too far to the left of me", so for some liberals, that does indeed mean everyone to the left of Biden
Are you a tankie because you are to the left of Joe biden or because you idealise the soviet union and the ccp?
I've been called a tankie for lots of reasons: criticising Elon Musk, condemning Israels genocide of the Palestinians, opposing invading Venezuela, condemning the US's destruction of North Korea, not believing that far right American think tanks are trustworthy, calling Kamala Harris a genocide supporter, calling bullshit on the claim that Mao had one in ten Chinese citizens executed for being a western spy. Calling bullshit on the claim that Che Guevera committed genocide. Basically anything that runs counter to the average American neo-liberal's world view.
Seems weird to be called a tankie for any of those reasons. Especially condemning the genocide.
Not really, given that it's a term that just means "people too far to the left of me" and those positions are all too far to the left for many liberals
How far left are you?
Fairly far, by American standards