I just cannot fathom how they think there are enough of us to matter, and how we have any meaningful political power at all. The enemy is both strong and weak. The enemy is laughable, yet an omnipresent threat. Obsession with a plot, often international. Like just say "Judeo-Bolsheviks" if that's what you want to say.
Scuttling means to destroy a ship when it's aground or otherwise too damaged to function. I doubt they picked it for an association with vermin, they have quite different meanings. It is funny, though, as scuttling a ship is something the crew does when the ship is too damaged to be salvaged or at risk of falling in to enemy hands. When enemies destroy the ship it's sabotage.
Some of them can't grasp that they are not part of the left and that it isn't friendly fire when leftists are at odds with them. In that case, they'd see 'tankies' as foolishly scuttling a perfectly good ship, unable to comprehend that actual leftists would be pleased to see the USS Genocide and it's entire complement of war criminals sink into the Mariana Trench
Word. American's have an incredibly distorted view of "The left". Most people think that "The left" is civil rights issues and maybe healthcare and would balk if you start talking about abolishing private property.
There's so little self crit with westerners on why they're so threatened by an "authoritarian dictator" who died 70 years ago, and why of all the killers and tyrants in the world Stalin is the most evil and hideous and dangerous of them. They just believe it as an article of faith.
I know they have different meanings, but it is an odd word to use in this context, which is why the association with scuttling insects is the only reason I can think of that they would use the term rather than something like "sabotaged"