2d ago

The Republicans Should've Faced Way More Criticism During The 2024 Presidential Campaign

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Im an european socialist and thought tankies were a degoratory term for authoritarian communists. I did not think the few commies in the states mattered that much in your public debate. Or am misunderstanding everything about the meme?
- Democrats are now so rabidly pro-war, they accuse anyone criticizing the defense industry or forever wars of being tankies.
  
  I remembering being called Tankie for wanting to defund the military for Israel and using the money for Ukraine and helping the poor, as the money for Israel vastly outspent the money spent for Ukraine and most social services.
  
  So shift the money from a genocide to a proxy war. How progressive of you.
  
  (It's one of the few things liberals like, so I have to pretend I'm for it.)
- I did not think the few commies in the states mattered that much in your public debates.
  There's some influencers in the states with pretty wide reach; I know a few people irl who are vaguely leftist in ideals, especially as they all belong to one or more marginalized groups, who didn't vote because "Kamala is a cop" and "I draw the line at genocide" and "at least my hands will be clean".
  So they aren't tankies, they wouldn't vote for trump in a million years, but on the fence about voting at all and some "leftist" social media influencers pushed them into the not voting camp.
  This is just my small scale anecdote, I can't say if my limited population sample actually means anything nationally.
  (Sadly now, they are all absolutely crashing out over the state of affairs, like we didn't know this was all going to happen under Trump)
  
  Thank you for the answer.
  In our political landscape all flavours of leftists agree from democratic socialists to soviet nostalgics and anarchists agree Trump is a fascist.
  Many socialists do not vote here, because they say there is no parties representing them. But no sane person would even consider Trump an option, liberal or even moderate conservative.
  It makes the states very exotic for us and then I got confused about the tankie meme, because now I am not sure what is meant by tankie.
  Here it loosely means someone who fantasize about a benevolent soviet empire. But the old school commies here hates fascists with a passion and dream about tanks driving into Berlin after WWII, hence the name tankie.
  Back to the meme. I get confused because the people I call tankies will removed and moan about centrists and moderates until the second coming of Lenin or whatever. But they are also the first ones to try organize an anti-fascist response against the ultra conservative populists over here.
  American politics are hard to understand from the outside and it has been even harder the last couple of months.
  
  moan about centrists and moderates until the second coming of Lenin or whatever
  It has everything to do with power dynamics. The American centrists and moderates maintain the limit of allowed mainstream political discourse as there is no distinction between a liberal and leftist. In fact every attempt is made to maintain them as synonyms.
  In America centrists and moderates define themselves as leftist, and they view anything further left of themselves to be something like unchecked authoritarianism.
  Thusly the American right-wing gets to successfully operate from the default position of linking leftism to authoritarianism in all discourse and debate.
  So most of the American Left is just plain stuck trying to escape this paradigm because the basic terms don't have the same coherency.
  
  Correct me If I understand you wrong.
  "Tankie in an american context means everyone who take part in the debate but are left of the left wing in the democratic party?"
  If that is correct a lot of memes make more sense. Because tankies were I come from (as the name implies) are normally not inherently against military, but a lot of memes are about tankies being anti war.
  
  You're not wrong but more/also that the term is used rather incoherently in an American context.
  
  Thank you once again. I wont pretend I understand it entirely but a lot of the debate and calling of names makes more sende now. In Europe we define between conservatism, liberalism and socialism. And people often identify by where they are in the mix, if they are into politics
  
  The word 'socialism' is not allowed in American political discourse. That's why we have to call for 'universal healthcare'. We need 'affordable housing' because building new public housing was outlawed two decades ago. We can barely use the term 'worker' and have to approximate with 'working class' or 'working families'.
  We can't even use the language of the left in America.
  
  The word 'proletarian' was and is a demeaning term to shame people for being poor. The socialist movement in Europe started to use it as something positive because it meant they werent owners and thus exploiters. Luckily words can be turned around.
  
  Many socialists do not vote here, because they say there is no parties representing them.
  Aye, there's the rub

603 comments