A tankie is someone who defends Chinese and Soviet communism and denies that any of the claimed atrocities happen. In the name of Marxism-Leninism, or Maoism, or Stalinism, they get very angry, attack you and ban you if you think differently, and will fight to the teeth to claim that the tiananmen square massacre, the uyghur genocide, holodomor, any other genocides by Mao, Stalin or whoever you want who's communist, are Western imperialistic propaganda. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's a whole thing there just like nazis aren't just "people who hate jews but claim the Jewish genocide never happened". Tankies usually also defend Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian War (or "conflict" as they may claim). Then again, Trump supporters usually also defend Russia. Maybe the horseshoe theory is not that crazy.

[–] ImFresh3x@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tankies have no meaningful communism to defend. They’re not defending communist states, they’re defending a right wing authoritarian oligarchy, and an authoritarian corporatocracy. They’re not ideologues. They’re contrarian bootlickers.

[–] god@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If you read their rhetoric, tankies do tend to defend communism in general. They grab the theories of Marx and Lenin and whatever to do this.

[–] ImFresh3x@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Oh yes of course in their stated goals sure. But in the day to day commentary it’s all just worshiping of authoritarian states that abandoned their core economic socialist principles decades ago.

[–] Difficult_Bit_1339@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

Dang, why couldn't they simply be proponents of armored cavalry instead of an entire memeplex of bad ideas.

[–] xtremeownage@lemmyonline.com 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sounds like your typical extremist.

Honestly- if you change around terminology slightly..., it also describes the far-right wingers AND the far-left wingers too.

I generally try to keep ALL of those types of communities removed... its not healthy.

[–] god@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago

Yup. That's what the horseshoe theory says lmao. That both extremes meet. That's why tankies are so similar to nazis I guess. Or maybe they're both just the same thing and people like saying ones are "extreme left" and the others are "extreme right".