Transcript:

As the war in Ukraine grinds on, I feel like I should take the time to talk about tankies within the Left. Whoo boy.

First, what is a tankie?
The term originates from the 2nd half of the 20th century. There was a large schism within the Left at that time, after the Soviet union rolled tanks into Hungary and Czechoslovakia when the two tried to break out of the Soviet sphere of influence.
While most leftists opposed this, there were some weirdos who supported the Soviets in their brutal crackdowns. These were the OG tankies back then.

Second, the Soviet Union back in that time period. It wasn’t socialist or communist. It was a fascistic oligarchy, that later transitioned into far-right kleptocracies, with the exception of those countries that ended up with the West.
Here’s the name of the game: build a totalitarian dictatorship with a ruling class of strongmen and cleptocrats, and then put “The People’s” in front of the name.
As such, the People’s Republic of Hungary wasn’t the people’s and wasn’t a republic, just like every other country under Soviet military occupation.

Enter modern day tankies, carrying the torch of authoritarianism onward. If you’ve seen leftists in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, chances are they were tankies.

The alpha and omega of tankie political thought is “US bad” (here “US” includes the West as a whole). From this, they extrapolated that anything opposing the US must be good by definition.

Who opposed or currently opposes the US? The Soviet Union. China. Russia. Syria. North Korea. Cuba. The list goes on.

You might notice that these countries all happen to be horrible dictatorships with the aforementioned ruling classes of strongmen and cleptocrats. They disappear people with dissenting political opinions, forming opposition parties or opposing news outlets is either banned or severely restricted, heavy state propaganda is broadcast to the population 24/7, and so on.

Every person with an IQ above room temperature (in Celsius) agrees that these governments are the opposite of good.

Tankies disagree.

Why? Because US bad.

In their minds the US is such a comically overexaggerated evil that even the most horrible actions taken by opposing governments are justified.

China bans forming independent workers’ unions? Well, they have to, because those unions would be controlled by the CIA.

Cuba throws political dissidents in jail? Well, they have to, because those people are surely US-puppets.

Russia invades Ukraine after the latter drifts away from its sphere of influence? Well, they had to, they were afraid of US-led “NATO expansion”.

You might have guessed it already, but tankies aren’t leftists. They only adopted the aesthetics of what many consider “leftist”, i.e. symbols associated with the Soviet Union for the most part. Otherwise they’re just fascists painted red.

Leftists don’t stan for dictatorships and oligarchies. Tankies do.

Leftists don’t condone jailing political opponents. Tankies do.

Leftists don’t deny genocides like the Holodomor, or what China does to Uygurs. Tankies do.

Leftists don’t support Russian blood and soil imperialistic action against Ukraine. Tankies do.

The list goes on.

Especially now, every effort must be taken to excise these lunatics from the left, and send them off to the far-right where they belong. Otherwise they’ll keep festering on leftism like a tumor, making it much harder to bring people over.

Next time you see a tankie, feel free to hurl a creative insult of your choice in their direction. In fact, you should.

Thank you, rant over.

[insert tiresome and unfunny ableist image here]