At least some one will keep the ashes warm for us.

I’ve seen a lot of hysteria around “tankies” since I started using Lemmy and I gotta say I really don’t get it

I used to think this but then discovered that most of the actual tankies are blocked by my instance.

By contrast I pointed my browser to lemmy.ml just now and the front page includes a celebration of "Russia Unity Day", a reading group for "Soviet Democracy", and three "good news only" type puff pieces about China. There's definitely a solid bloc of propagandists out there.

As others have said, they want to run that kind of instance I don't actually have any huge beef with it. To an extent I think it's good to have some other perspectives and news sources. Just be aware that that's who people are talking about when they talk about "tankies", not the people who post stuff critical of the Democratic Party.

People should run their lemmy instance as they want.

The non stop feudposting about what people do in their own instance is ridiculous. Block the instance and move on with your life if you need to. Block me to while youre at it! Who cares?

It seems there is some other agenda at play with those who are on this dumb ass crusade against .ml

I think people generally think of themselves as progressive when they come here, and it might be their first run-in with revolutionary socialists. They get caught between their progressive beliefs, largely around the Bernie/AOC area, and this suddenly new group (to them) of people that despise reformism and the Democrats almost as much as the Republicans. It creates a lot of friction, IMO. And yea, Lemmy was and is made by MLs, which means we have a permanent foothold here.

Have you tried browsing hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml? Lemmy.ml has its own vibe because we don't really defederate from anyone, but Lemmygrad.ml and Hexbear.net are pretty good examples of what "tankies" are like when we aren't getting into constant squabbles with liberals. You'll see tons of queer people, a lot of passionate people, and a lot of normalcy, to be honest.

Most content from .ml users likely isn't even political, so people certainly overstate how prevalent radicalism is. Lemmy is part of the fediverse and isn't a reserved political space any more than any other part of it. But you are much more likely to see controversial positions from the "tankie triad" compared to other instances and other social media. It is one of the few big instances where you can find popular support for Russia over Ukraine or denying the Uyghur genocide for example.

Could you explain what you actually want

Simply put: I don't want billionaires controlling every single aspect of society, as they do now.

If you'd like to read more, I agree with all of this.. I also agree with all of this.

what you could see realistically happening if the fascists won?

Arguably, and I would, the fascists are already in control. Just think of the tech enshittification at the hands of technofascists. Think of the endless wars; how much say in those wars do you truly believe you have? Think of the military budget outspending every single other country combined. We are the most powerful and richest country in the history of this planet ... and 50% of americans can't afford a 1 bedroom apartment. Americans can't afford groceries. Real wages have been stuck in the 1970s. We are bankrupting ourselves with medical and student debt. Nobody can afford a house. Kids still in cages, guantanamo bay still operating, ICE record funding every year,

How much say do you have at your job? Unions are being squashed and suppressed. Have you attended a pro-gaza rally lately? How did the police treat you?

...I want a better world in which the 99% actually have a say, actually have a better life, and we don't have 1% of people hoarding all the power and wealth of the world. This IS possible.

Not who you asked, but I want socialism, which requires revolution, which itself requires a mass working class revolutionary party, a militant and class conscious working class, and instability within the capitalist class. The first two are directly actionable through joining socialist orgs like PSL and doing large amounts of outreach, agitation, etc. The latter is out of our control, no matter if the Democrats or Republicans win in elections, and is more a matter of course as capitalism decays.

Fascism isn't something that can be elected. Fascism is when the capitalist class oversteps the legal boundaries and restricts the civil rights of the country, when bourgeois democracy is replaced with outright direct rule by capital. Republicans winning or losing does not actually increase or decrease the chance of fascism, because fascism is a response to economic conditions and rising socialist organizing outside of the legal system.

This is important, because it means Democrats winning does not stop fascism. Fascism is out of the control of the working class, and can only be prevented by socialism, and stopped once in action by fighting it directly. In either case, mass socialist organizing is both the vaccine and the cure for fascism, depending on the timeline.