conservatives wouldnt use it because they don't follow leftist internet shit, and they already think liberals are communists so no point in even using the word.

  • Awoo [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Yes but also no.

    If you boil it down to its function instead of meaning, it represents going too far left. What that means in any context changes depending on how far left the person using it thinks is too far.

    The reason it feels like it changes meaning so much is because it represents anti-leftism fitted to whatever context it is being used in. You are a tankie if you are an ML to a baby left demsoc, you are a tankie if you want to end capitalism to a socdem, and you are a tankie if you're a socdem to a neoliberal.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Someone on Twitter was trying to explain to me that Tankie somehow meant right wing because something something Maupin? And I just kept asking him "Who is Maupin? Is he some kind of twitch streamer?" because 1.) I don't actually know anything about Maupin except he is some kind of grifter sex pest and 2.) It's really, really funny that this guy was using some extremely online cult guy with maybe a few hundred followers to explain why millions of socialists around the world were actually bad socialists.

      • 4zi [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Maupin was a part of the Patriotic Socialism/magacommunism/mecha tankie dumb online shit we’ve been seeing crop up. So the person who was saying tankie means right wing is (in their specific view) correct because those types of debate bros see revolution stemming from their hyper idealized version of a right wing proletariat (middle class jet ski dealership owners, fail sons, foremans, hvac company owners, etc)

        But they are also a reaction of leftist ideology, so calling them a tankie is also traditionally incorrect

        • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          yes but they are also a weird terminally online group of about 100 people so aren't a major part of the left. It would be like referining hexbear as proof unions are bad

          • robinn [none/use name]
            ·
            2 years ago

            Tiananmen Square is so easy to justify I do it to anybody who will listen

            • Frank [he/him, he/him]
              ·
              2 years ago

              The whole "people who weren't even in the square and were almost certainly CIA assets were killing unarmed PLA soldiers with fire bombs and stolen machine guns and otherwise just beating them to death, and non one actually died in the square and all the students left peacefully when the PLA's deadline expired" does kind of knock the wind out of the usual narrative.