Even if you disagree with them, Trotskyists are not tankies, simple Marxists aren't tankies, leftists curious and exploring different theories aren't tankies, and ffs anarchists like myself are not tankies.
I feel like "tankie" indicated a very specific worldview at one time, but it's been used lately a lot to mean things like "doesn't agree with nations supporting oppression and inequity up to and including genocide" -- which is drastically at odds with how I've seen the term used in the past, no?
I have a .world exclusive alt for when I feel like swimming through a sea of memes and I've seen this tankie drama building since the initial Reddit diaspora. I think it has come to a head thanks to an increasing number of very vocal, very prolific users frequently posting about it.
They're often upset, sometimes legitimately because a mod was being heavy handed with comment removal, sometimes because they were being an asshole and received a ban. They can't just accept it and move on. No, they must have revenge! Because access to content was removed, everyone must defederate from whichever instance... thereby removing access to all the content themselves. Much of it doesn't make sense. A hefty dallop of idealogical purity á la Exiting the Vampire Castle is in there too.
Now both the aggrieved and vicariously aggrieved are using "tankie" to describe anyone they don't like, especially actual leftists whose ideas challenge their center to center-right worldviews. With a rallying cry to get behind, a poorly defined common enemy, and a lot of idiotic theatrics, their movement is gaining some traction. I don't even know if it's the majority of .world users, but it's enough where browsing by all has resulted in my feed getting shitted up with lib drama.