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A thread that serves as a brief reflection and observations from my days (about a year) as a Tankie:
While âwhite leftistsâ are a significant portion of âthe leftâ as a whole, theyâre not so dominant in a majority of Tankie spaces I inhabited. Most groups had a majority of membership that wasnât white, straight, or cis. Thus, I received a lot of perspective.
A huge draw to Tankie thought is found in ârighteous angerâ which is a term Iâm using to define the fury that indigenous, black, and Third World people held towards Capitalism and the United States or both.
I call it righteous because I consider it to be valid and reasonable anger. The history of these groups is one filled with oppression, genocide, discriminatory policy, and violence. The United States does not have a clean history, especially towards these groups.
The problem I began to notice came in the form of âmisdirected angerâ which is term Iâd use to describe that righteous anger being portrayed and channeled in unhealthy ways. The most obvious is through the support and defense of brutal and repressive governments.
To these people, they held such fury at everything the United States had done that it became a moral failure to believe or support the US in any way. They were blinded by anger and led to a path of believing that if the US hates it, it must be good.
This anger also became directed towards individuals. The obsessive paranoia of the âdeep stateâ led to a resurgence of democratic centralism. A need to police views. Power struggle for ideological control within the group. Pretty brutal stuff for social media
But it also became an issue of turning the knives on groups like: Americans, white people, cis people, gender conforming trans people. Anyone that did not devote their full identity to âthe struggleâ was given brutal treatment at any opportunity.
Which is why being a Tankie can be so easy to slip into and hard to exit. Youâre either pressured into conforming to the group or youâre labeled a liberal/reactionary and thrown out as a âpsyopâ
Iâve lost a few online friends to this mentality and culture. I remember once being accused of being emotionally abusive for telling someone to shut up and accused of âanti-indigenous tendenciesâ for making critical questions of some whacky decolonial thought.
In summary, fuck Tankies. As a word of warning, theyâre not the only one guilty of this behavior. Any ideology can. If yoy wish to stop tankies, you need to stop this incessant need to dunk on people who are angry with the current state and still figuring things out.
