• Hegar@fedia.io
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      12 hours ago

      It’s not about defending tankies it’s about people who are constantly shifting the focus of conversation to the most mockable section of online lefties.

      The ruling class don’t waste their time distancing themselves from qanon, they focus on furthering their class interests and emiserating the poor.

      Liberals who are constantly calling people tankies are helping the ruling class.

      • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        I’m not taking cues from the far-right in not denouncing our worst aspects when I see them and letting them take up shop in our spaces. I don’t see the need to whataboutism to them either and will call that out, but I don’t want them in spaces I’m in either.

        • Norah (pup/it/she)
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          12 hours ago

          No one’s defending tankies, nor saying we shouldn’t call them out. The original commenter was saying liberals call all manner of leftists “tankies” when they actually aren’t in order to derail them.

          • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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            11 hours ago

            The next commenter stated: “The ruling class don’t waste their time distancing themselves from qanon, they focus on furthering their class interests and emiserating the poor.” Distancing themselves includes calling them out. So it sounds to me like they’re saying we need to be pragmatic like the ruling class and not distance ourselves from tankies, which is absolutely not something I’m ever going to do for those slimeballs. Actively doing it like some sort of performance apropos of nothing? Sure, maybe not. But if a tankie ever tries to associate with us, they need to be given the boot over their disgusting ideals.

            • Hegar@fedia.io
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              10 hours ago

              I’m saying the need to instantly and constantly denounce tankies is tedious and counterproductive. I’m saying that policing the boundaries of leftism based on dumb shit said online is a reactionary distraction.

              • hark@lemmy.world
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                5 hours ago

                It’s a common strategy used to distract from the core issues. It’s like when supporters of israel go “but do you condemn hamas?!” or “oh, I notice you don’t criticize hamas as much (therefore you must support them)”

            • Norah (pup/it/she)
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              6 hours ago

              I feel like you thought they were disagreeing with you, when they were pointing out the hypocrisy of Liberals but I dunno…

      • Forester@pawb.social
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        11 hours ago

        It’s a political slang word. It refers to those who support leftist authoritarian regimes such as communist, China. Regimes where the state can do no wrong and the people do all the wrong so the state must step in to crush the people and “protect them” from dangerous, Western and capitalist ideas. Pretty sure the name derives from the 1989 tiananmen square incident.

        • InquisitiveApathy@lemm.ee
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          11 hours ago

          The term has nothing to do with Tiananmen square and it’s usage actually predates the massacre by almost 40 years.