In practice, liberals and anarchists call anyone who defines themselves as a communist a tankie. Liberals will frequently use it for anyone who claims to be any sort of socialist.
Maybe sometimes. I don’t think this is generally true. Though I’ve also met tankies who think you’re not a real communist unless you’re a tankie. Are you one of those people?
To me you’re not a tankie unless you consistently apologize for, minimize, or dismiss oppression under so-called socialist countries. There are a decent number of communists who don’t do this but they’re not the majority from what I’ve seen.
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted for this. I’ve SEEN real tankies, doing odd things like cheering for BRICS to rise up or Russia to defeat NATO in Ukraine because late stage capitalist oligarchy counts as communism if it’s Russian or something, I don’t know?
But the VAST majority of the time I see it used is by neoliberals as an excuse to dismiss literally anyone anywhere on the actual political left out of hand.
In practice, liberals and anarchists call anyone who defines themselves as a communist a tankie. Liberals will frequently use it for anyone who claims to be any sort of socialist.
liberals don’t use “tankie”, they would just use the term “communist”
They absolutely use tankie.
Maybe sometimes. I don’t think this is generally true. Though I’ve also met tankies who think you’re not a real communist unless you’re a tankie. Are you one of those people?
To me you’re not a tankie unless you consistently apologize for, minimize, or dismiss oppression under so-called socialist countries. There are a decent number of communists who don’t do this but they’re not the majority from what I’ve seen.
I’ve seen liberals call social democrats tankies. It’s been turned into a meaningless term.
A word sometimes being misused doesn’t make it meaningless. Personally, I don’t see this all that often.
But yeah I mean incorrect usage should be criticized when it appears, certainly.
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted for this. I’ve SEEN real tankies, doing odd things like cheering for BRICS to rise up or Russia to defeat NATO in Ukraine because late stage capitalist oligarchy counts as communism if it’s Russian or something, I don’t know?
But the VAST majority of the time I see it used is by neoliberals as an excuse to dismiss literally anyone anywhere on the actual political left out of hand.
neoliberals would not call you a “tankie”, since “communist” is already a deogratory/perjorative term for them.