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this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2026
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MeanwhileOnGrad
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"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"
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Meanwhile On Grad
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None of my explanation carries any relation to the relative wealth of Trump versus Putin.
You clearly are not understanding, and seeming so almost deliberately.
The bigger picture is that political struggles transcend any lone individual, isolated antecedent, or narrow objective.
If you want to discuss, please try to do so without relying on a straw man.
Seriously? This thread began with you bringing up current political struggles, to which I reasonably replied by bringing up Ukraine as an example of one frequently discussed by tankies. From there, you've derailed and strawmanned by failing to address the points and resorting to a form of "America though" every single time.
My general observation is that you have placed yourself between two deceiving narratives, while also boldly framing yourself and neutral and enlightened.
One the one side, you have adopted a narrative of unification and homogeneity across a group you call tankies. On the other side, you have promoted the narrative constructed by Western states, most notably the US, and propagated through Western media, for the purpose of cultivating popular domestic support for their own expansionism.
Tankie is a term coined by leftists to discredit other leftists. Most generally, the usage has remained as anti-authoritarian leftists attacking authoritarian leftists, but the term has no fixed, precise meaning, and has been widely abused due to its vagueness and obscurity. As for authoritarian leftists, attitudes do vary considerably. Taking for example attitudes respecting the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, some are vulgar campists who glorify strongmen and deny atrocities, whereas others simply acquiesce to the painful reality that conflicts involving US imperialism always end in massive devastation, even while no credible antagonist of the US is itself driven by virtue. The latter is broadly shared by most serious leftists, including libertarian socialists and democratic socialists, who are also broadly critical of all authoritarians, including leftists who are authoritarian.
Specifically attacking tankies from a standpoint of reaction is counterproductive. Reactionaries obviously demean all leftists, but very rarely, at most, offer any characterizations that are accurate.
The dialogue that is promoted by you and this community is similarly counterproductive. It wastefully exaggerates the threat of the groups you criticize, and it promotes broad conflations whose primary effects are to amplify antagonism and to poison the discourse. A much more serious approach to engaging leftism would be first learning and acknowledging the varied positions within and between distinct leftist tendencies, and then considering which specific positions you are inclined to accept versus to reject.
More generally, discuss ideas, instead of attacking people or generalizing groups.