The word is meaningless. I wish people would stop trying to create a false dichotomy between the "good MLs" and "tankies". The only difference is how many layers of propaganda the one doing the differentiating has internalized.
The distinction so many non-MLs try to make is really incoherent; Sankara, Che, and the Black Panthers were all Stalin-loving MLs, but they're considered the good ones, whereas Mao, the Kims, and Stalin himself are the fake socialist red fascist authoritarians or whatever. It has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with how successfully slandered they've been by capitalist propaganda.
If anything, the Reddit OP is just being more consistent.
I mean tankie has just become a meaningless word now. It's used for basically "anyone I disagree with" online. Anyone that uses it unironically is probably some form of liberal or radlib.
The word is meaningless. I wish people would stop trying to create a false dichotomy between the "good MLs" and "tankies". The only difference is how many layers of propaganda the one doing the differentiating has internalized.
The distinction so many non-MLs try to make is really incoherent; Sankara, Che, and the Black Panthers were all Stalin-loving MLs, but they're considered the good ones, whereas Mao, the Kims, and Stalin himself are the fake socialist red fascist authoritarians or whatever. It has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with how successfully slandered they've been by capitalist propaganda.
If anything, the Reddit OP is just being more consistent.
I mean tankie has just become a meaningless word now. It's used for basically "anyone I disagree with" online. Anyone that uses it unironically is probably some form of liberal or radlib.