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Are you a "tankie"? (2025 edition) (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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I forgot to set a reminder so I'm a little late getting to this, but here we are again:

Are you a "tankie"?

Respond "yes" or "no", I'll collate results later

This process is being undertaken to determine if so-called "tankies" are conspiring to make you (yes, you) have a bad time on the internet!

vague or informal answers will be interpreted by the central authority (me). Only top level comments will be counted. I will not be providing further instructions or clarifications.

๐Ÿคฏ

Link to previous results (very serious) hexbear / lemmy,ml

Link to previous "are you a tankie?" thread

I'll likely check back in a week, my old pc died so itll take a little bit of time to prettify the results and write a report

Ciao, and of course, imperialism must be destroyed.

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[โ€“] 5 points 1 year ago (8 children)

For the sake of the poll, it's really asking "are you a communist?" I generally don't refer to myself as a "tankie" for similar reasons as you said, but clarified my position to expressly include that as far as this poll is about support for communism/leftism/etc, it applies to me. Just hoping the final numbers show a good amount of "yes" answers simply due to wanting a strong showing of leftists.

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  • [โ€“] 6 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    I really think the wording should be changed. Liberals will gladly rip everything out of context. The word Tankie is infinitely more loaded than Communist. Most Liberals even think it's about Tiannenmen square and the tank man and you already know how much propaganda they consumed about Tiannenmen square.

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  • [โ€“] 6 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    I align most with Nia Frome's viewpoint in Marketing Socialism. Essentially, we can't shy away from loaded terms, liberals will accuse us regardless, so it's more important to correctly demystify rather than taking the "easy" path of distancing ourselves from "tankies," as though "tankie" means anything other than "communist/leftist/anti-imperialist/etc."

    We should correctly call out "tankie" as something to not be afraid of, it just means "commie" or "red" or "pinko," and not let the word have power over discourse when discussing leftist politics.

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    But 'Tankie' is not the ideology at all. There is no reason to defend anything which is not the ideology itself. The word Tankie is so meaningless and vague that the only reason to ever use it is if people are actually trying to push on it. In which case you'd first have to ask them what they even mean by the word Tankie because they probably don't know what it means to begin with (nobody really does at this point).

    Using it as a self-identifier is self-defeating.

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  • [โ€“] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Using "tankie" as a self-identifier has the same effect as calling oneself a "commie," it signals that being accused of being a communist isn't anything to take offense to. If I am going to be called a "commie, pinko, red, tankie, etc" then it is best to call it out for what it is: Accurate insofar as it describes me as a communist. I'm not going to deny those who call me by such pejoratives, rather I'm just going to explain why I'm a communist. Using it as a self-identifier blunts the pejorative and makes it less effective in public discourse to shut down communist speech.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Except Communism is the ideology and "Tankie" isn't really anything anyone can define.

    Using it as a self-identifier makes it so people are less willing to engage and you're fighting on an opponents terms.

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