Someone pointed out that the deprogram boys might've beaten me to it by like 3 days. It's apparently in their video on it, I watched it but must have not paid attention as I couldn't find the specific part, but worth noting.
Anyway I'm convinced this is the strongest way to push back against it.
Every time someone says "red fash" I ask them this and it pretty much exposes that it's anti-communism and that there is no form of marxist they support.
red fash
Do you include Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Vietnam, Laos, Nepal, the Kerala district of India, or more complicated places like Angola, Nicaragua etc in that? Is there a type of “red” (marxist) that you don’t call a fascist? (serious question)
One time I did this with a supposed socialist and he said Cuba didn't count as tankie since they're monoethnic (they aren't). Apparently this person was under the impression socialism is good when it's one ethnicity per society, which doesn't even describe Cuba though. He proceeded to talk about how "tankie countries" are defined by ethnic oppression, examples being Russians oppressing Hungarians or China oppressing the Taiwanese.
I only have an example of one, but I have to believe this is a common ideological underpinning for a lot of confused western leftists
There’s a lot of truly bizarre opinion on nationalism and ethnicity when it comes to “tankie” and “red fash” discourse. Some streaming had a whole filled diaper moment talking about how anti-imperialist movements in Africa are ethno-nationalists for wanting to kick out their white ruling classes.