Whence cometh all the anti-"tankie" hate all of a sudden?

Fine, I'll admit, I have a problem. I hear obvious bullshit and I sort of automatically filter it out because it's clearly bullshit and nobody will buy into it, and then sometimes it turns out it was actually a Really Big Deal that I probably should have paid some attention to. Made that mistake with Bitcoin, could have been rich but noooo, I ignored it because it was obviously dumb as hell. Another example: I distinctly remember going "What is this Gamergate shit? It'll probably blow over but let me try to see if there's a point to it" and then I got a booty-call from my then-girlfriend that her roommate was heading out to class so I went up to her dorm room, and that was the last I really paid attention to gamergate until years later when it turned out to have become a whole thing. My eyes would just glaze over anytime I saw the word because I basically went "oh yeah its that bullshit that dumbasses were losing their minds over and nobody cares about, I ain't got time to pay attention to that shit" and then it turns out it was actually this major flashpoint for the rise of the particularly bizarre new far right dweebs we get nowadays.

I did the same thing with "tankies". Never heard the term until maybe 2017? and largely ignored it. It just seemed to be a nothingburger, some new term for a few terminally online weirdos who hated Communists, and I assumed they were just fascists because you know who hated the Communists the most? Nazis. But then it spread and more people started using it, and then applying it more broadly (even Bernard Brethren are tankies, apparently?) which meant that it was such a varied term as to have no meaning. And I basically wrote off anyone hating on tankies as some dumbass who wasn't worth listening to because they were too ill informed to have anything of value to say.

It's probably not all of a sudden but it's really dawning on me that this is not some flash in the pan that'll just go away. I've been expecting it to just burn itself out because it's so obviously on its face bullshit. But, fast forward and the term seems to have taken on a whole life of its own. So many people hate on "tankies". Even anarchists I know irl hate on "tankies". Supposedly radical leftists hate on "tankies". I went on a date with an anarchist who started ragging on "tankies" and I just left because what even is that shit? It's become so prevalent I feel I can't ignore it anymore.

Don't support the NATO proxy war that's grinding up Ukrainian lives? Ebil tankie. Don't support genocide in Palestine? Ebil tankie. Wouldn't vote for Genocide Joe or Holocaust Harris? Ebil tankie. Not racist against Chinese people? Ebil tankie. Think Cuba and Venezuela are cool actually? Ebil tankie. Don't like NATO? Ebil tankie. Post on Hexbear? Ebil tankie.

I didn't grow up during the Cold War so idk how AmeriKKKan society was about Communists, but I don't remember any of this level of prevalent rabid anti-Communism from liberals and even people who fancy themselves as so-called radical leftists in like, 2000 - 2015. This is getting absurd and frankly baffling. Not too long ago a bunch of these same people were saying socialism is cool, war is bad, black and brown lives matter. But now all of a sudden it seems like you actually apply those slogans and you're an "ebil tankie".

What makes it seem extra insidious is that basically all of this seems to feed back into supporting USAdian warmongering and imperialism. Like, what is a "tankie"? When you ask people they'll say "Authoritarian Communists" but it really just seems that they call anyone who isn't deepthroating the boot of the AmeriKKKan Empire a "tankie".

How did this happen? What is going on?

92 comments

It's a symptom of one of the primary contradictions of reactionary thought: they cannot come up with new stuff, mostly ideas but even words evade them. So they glom onto some new word, twist the meaning to serve their stunted purposes, and say it often and loudly that (quite regrettably) it becomes the first time many people hear it.
Tankie was originally a left-on-left pejorative stemming from (mostly) Western left critics of supporters of a Soviet armed takeover of Hungary where there was lots of pictures of crowds facing soldiers and tanks. As that context faded from popular memory the word got picked up by anarchists as a slang for "authoritarian" left movements and, primarily, their supporters. In addition, for a long time during the cold war the propaganda of Soviet military was depicted as columns of tanks streaming across Europe. The West had the fancier planes and missiles. The West had the spy satellites and the wunderwaffe geegaws. The Soviets had tanks and rows of conscripts. The new horse for the modern asiatic horde was the tank. What's the most famous anti-CPC picture on Earth? Tank man in Tienanmen Square.
To be totally honest I am both extremely annoyed at anarchists for doing this but I can't blame them. The right was going to steal a word anyway because, as I mentioned before, they can't come up with fuck all on their own. So the anarchists could have called supporters of the Soviets "candy marshmallow sunshine bunnies" and the right would have stolen that.
So here we are, in the ever evolving internet space, where everyone is trying to come up with new words to describe things so they can seem like their argument is on the leading edge because it has the newest jargon. The word tankie makes a comeback. It's not new but it's new to most people. The right grabs it, spins it, and uses it as a broad brush. Those anarchists? Oh they're tankies now. Just like the librarians, the gay baristas, the democrats, anything that isn't a conservative nationalist chauvinistic conservative is tankie. Women divorcing men? Tankie. Trans people? Starts with a T just like Tankie does. On and on until they find the next word. Before DEI it was CRT. Before CRT it was Affirmative Action. (And so on and so forth
)
- Also remember "SJW" that was a fun one. Turning the very concept of fighting for social justice into an insult.
  
  I forgot about SJW. It's tough to keep track of their perpetual outrage manufacturing. It's like when you have a dog that barks at everything. Shit is annoying.
- This is the most interesting and insightful thing I've read on the internet for a very long time. Strong upvote.
- Before DEI it was CRT. Before CRT it was Affirmative Action. (And so on and so forth )
  As a disabled person (facial paralysis and TBI) my instinct is to feel offended that it seems like people only think DEI is about race. I get what you're trying to say, but Affirmative Action and CRT are not the same thing as DEI. CRT and Affirmative Action are fads that people come up with to make them feel good about themselves while they continue to be racist everywhere else in their life. DEI is about respect of all humans regardless of any differences and should be a basic part of being a decent human being. Yes, there is a racial component to it, but it's so much more.
  DEI is why I supported Target (until they showed their true colors) because they embraced it and I could walk in the store and feel like I was seen by them as a human being.
  I challenge anyone to walk alone into a new restaurant that you need to wait to be seated and see how long it takes for an employee to acknowledge you. I've had several times where I was alone and waited 15 minutes or longer to be acknowledged and we both knew we saw each other. Once I even waited 15 minutes, ended up getting seated and I waited another 15 minutes for someone to come and take my order before I left angry, frustrated, and feeling a great deal of shame. I never got to order and the place was empty with a few exceptions. DEI might have helped to prevent that or not 🤷🏻‍♂️
  
  I supported Target (until they showed their true colors)
  Target is a massive corporation that never hid its true colours. Its true colours: a massive forensics lab in a private-public partnership with the police to create a network of surveillance tied to facial recognition, racial profiling, and building enormous databases of biometric data on everyone in the US.
  Supporting them because you thought they saw you as a human being and not a resource to be exploited and a data point to be sold is just proof of how well you fell for the corporate DEI-washing they briefly underwent when it was in vogue and seen as profitable. Corporations, and especially the police lab that is Target, have never cared. They aren't people. They can't care.
  DEI (or IDEA, where I am, for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility) is about more than race, yes, but as a shibboleth for right-wing chuds it is the new AA, PC, CRT. Incantations they utter to summon the spectre of an insidious plot to dethrone white supremacy.
  
  Reminder that Target operates some of the most advanced forensic science labs in the US and routinely collaborates with and even trains law enforcement and FBI analysts.
  
  There's a reason that when the right seized upon "DEI" they left the A behind from the original "DEIA." They are a perpetual outrage machine but even they realized that ranting about accessibility for the disabled would make them look more reprehensible than even they were comfortable with, which is already a lot because bigotry is their bread and butter. Or, maybe better but somehow worse, they didn't even bother to consider that because they care so little about the disabled that it never even crossed their minds. Hell it's probably a mix of both. And both suck.

92 comments