The word “tankies” originally was coined to describe people from the West who approve of Soviet Union so much they’ve supported and defended Soviets’ crushing leftist uprising in Hungary with actual tanks for the sin of wanting to be independent.
Since then, the term has expanded to include people who lionize Soviet Union, modern Russia, China and DPRK to the degree that they blindly support anything those countries’ governments say and deny anything that might paint them in a bad light (like Holodomor, Tiananmen square massacre, current Russian invasion of Ukraine, Uyghur “re-education” camps, DPRK’s many crimes against humanity and so on) while still describing themselves as left-wing. Lemmy.ml, lemmygrad and hexbear are prominent Lemmy instances that are run by tankies.
I have no idea what’s in their heads. Some might be wildly misinformed, some might genuinely believe this. Some might be trolls. Some just hate the West (or the US in particular) and so to them whoever is against their enemies is their ally.
It sometimes gets ridiculous like openly transgender leftists defending authoritarian Islamic regimes where they would be instantly imprisoned, tortured and killed.
Just post to non-tankie instances then
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cm0002 literally left you an essay on what’s wrong with .ml and why he does what he does
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Well, since you’ve asked:
The word “tankies” originally was coined to describe people from the West who approve of Soviet Union so much they’ve supported and defended Soviets’ crushing leftist uprising in Hungary with actual tanks for the sin of wanting to be independent.
Since then, the term has expanded to include people who lionize Soviet Union, modern Russia, China and DPRK to the degree that they blindly support anything those countries’ governments say and deny anything that might paint them in a bad light (like Holodomor, Tiananmen square massacre, current Russian invasion of Ukraine, Uyghur “re-education” camps, DPRK’s many crimes against humanity and so on) while still describing themselves as left-wing. Lemmy.ml, lemmygrad and hexbear are prominent Lemmy instances that are run by tankies.
For what they’re saying this political things?
I have no idea what’s in their heads. Some might be wildly misinformed, some might genuinely believe this. Some might be trolls. Some just hate the West (or the US in particular) and so to them whoever is against their enemies is their ally.
It sometimes gets ridiculous like openly transgender leftists defending authoritarian Islamic regimes where they would be instantly imprisoned, tortured and killed.