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Are you a "tankie"? (2025 edition)
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2025
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I don't mind people calling themselves tankies but I don't think using a "slur" as an identifier is in any way helpful. Nor does anyone who uses it demeaningly really know what happened in Hungary. I barely know anything about it.
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.
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.
I don't think anyone sincerely identifies as a tankie, I just made this thread so I can remake my funny chart with the title are tankies conspiring to make you have a bad time on the internet?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Reappropriation is a thing.
That's why you point out the irrationality of the term "tankie," and make it so that your opponent's terms are meaningless.