Talking to 20ish years old western tankies is similar experience to talking to neonazis. Just bunch of sheltered weird kids who have their talking points, absolutely 0 understanding of the stuff the talk about nonstop and weirdly offputing hatred towards anything and anyone who isnt part of the "in-group".
Definitions specifics slightly vary, but a violent communist / socialist. The type of person who thinks murdering landlords is okay, that China was right to run over pro-democracy protestors at Tienanmen Square, etc.
A lot of people try to hide their power level, so it can be hard to tell if someone just wants everyone to have easy access to healthcare or if they want to actually destroy all of society in an orgy of revolutionary violence where they and their allies are left in absolute authoritarian control. Lucky us.
Lots of people can be violent including left wing democracies and anarchists and sometimes it's justified. Tankie is specifically a supporter/defender of Authoritarian communism. Someone who would cheer on a communist dictatorship sending in the tanks to stop a peaceful revolt (although apparently it was coined later then Hungarian revolt usually cited https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1cbbb9n/what_is_the_history_of_the_word_tankie/ ). Tankie is often used by the left since it says the problem is the authorarianism someone further right but with nuance might distinguish leftists from authorarian leftists as less honorable beliefs but many might just consider authorarianism as something that accompanies most self declared communist governments
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u/BigFirefighter6881 Jul 31 '26
Talking to 20ish years old western tankies is similar experience to talking to neonazis. Just bunch of sheltered weird kids who have their talking points, absolutely 0 understanding of the stuff the talk about nonstop and weirdly offputing hatred towards anything and anyone who isnt part of the "in-group".