It pisses me off to no end when people conflate legitimate criticism of Democrats with tankie rhetoric. The Dems are complacent, listless, corrupt, and lazy. They refuse to stand up to the Republicans until it's too late or doesn't matter.
The people want progressive politics: universal healthcare, living wage, affordable housing, education, and food. We want a sustainable future and an end to corporate greed.
The donor class, superpacs, and other sources of dark money in politics are what keep nearly everyone corrupt. Its addictive.
It pisses me off to no end when people conflate legitimate criticism of Democrats with tankie rhetoric.
Last election season went something like this:
Progressives: "Please stop sending weapons to a genocidal maniac who is using them to murder children in order to grab land. And stop actively protecting said genocidal maniac from consequences in the international community."
Completely wrong, Tankies weren't just promoting primarying Biden, a pretty obvious lost cause from the start given his incumbent status, they were promoting voting against Biden in the generals. That is NOT advocacy against genocide in Gaza. Trump is a single-state supporter.
Except that there are 2 groups: progressives and a more extreme left group. Progressives who were arguing in good faith against genocide were lumped in with the latter group.
The establishment Democrats were engaging in censorship and suppression of anything that was critical of Israel. Now Trump has stepped up this censorship/suppression, but it was definitely happening under Biden.
I'm a consequencialist, so while I acknowledge there is a minority of extremists who think burning down the state itself is progressive, I personally don't view them as such. If anything I think those extremists were being prodded along and supported by the conservatives who benefit from splitting the left and also agitated by Tankie psyops who benefit from the USA's fall from grace.
Just elect 60 democrats to the senate so we can get universal healthcare, reduce homelessness, tax the rich, reform the courts, expand ballot access, draw fair election maps, remove money from elections, protect human rights, and protect the environment. Everything I just listed are core DNC stances. If we can't do that then we're just going to suffer on this wild ride until societal collapse and replacement with something worse.
Incorrect, Biden sold Tank Munitions to Israel, but the nuance here is that Tankies has always described militarily aggressive, dictatorship loving, self-proclaiming Communists otherwise that would be fair.
Maybe if progressives in partisan primary states registered as Democrats and voted in the primaries, they wouldn’t be complaining about all the centrists in office.🤔
Are you implying there was a Democratic presedential primary that didn't break it's own rules to make sure Biden was the only candidate on the ballot (edit) in many states (/edit)?
If so, you're living in a fantasy.
This is the one-two step for Democratic party apologists.
Blame leftists for their lack of representation in the party.
Rig the processes to make sure that the left wing of the party has no internal representation.
Goto step one.
The best part of this dance from their view? Internal party politics and processes are boring, and the media won't cover it when they cheat.
No. The presidential incumbent primary is a joke. I’m referring to the congressional primary that saw less than 20% attendance. Congress is the primary approval for military aid for Israel. POTUS can use drawdown power, but that can be challenged by Congress.
We have three branches of government, two of which are elected, yet people pretend we have one vote every four years.
What about my comment gave you that impression? I’m saying that if progressives voted in Democratic primaries with the same conviction they use to criticize the DNC, we wouldn’t have as many centrists in Congress.
Democratic congressional primaries are decided by ~20% of registered Democrats. You can look at PAC funding and vote for the Democrat that isn’t funded by AIPAC, who will have a better chance of winning the election than a third-party protest vote.
My point is that Democrats, whether progressive or centrist, shouldn't be supporting this. It shouldn't matter (on this particular topic) if progressives aren't voting; I'm not willing to give centrist Democrats a pass and will condemn them just the same.
I keep hearing that progressives aren't voting in the numbers that they should be, but there might be another problem: there simply aren't that many progressives to get offices. As a "Reddit refugee", I realized that we are overrepresented in a lot of these online echo chambers.
I’ve been left of the Democrats and stumping progressives/greens/independents since the 90s. Most people don’t even know if they live in one of the 30 partisan primary states. Copious amounts of New Yorkers were turned away at the polls in 2016 because they didn’t know they had to be registered as a Democrat to vote for Bernie in the primary. I’m sure that happened in other partisan primary states as well.
Yet in my experience, asking a progressive to register as a Democrat is the fastest way to get them to stop listening, even though it’s statistically far more effective than voting third-party. People need to stop voting with their feelings and start playing the game that we’ve been losing for decades.
The presidential incumbent primary is a joke. I’m referring to the congressional primary that saw less than 20% attendance. Congress is the primary approval for military aid for Israel. POTUS can use drawdown power, but that can be challenged by Congress.
We have three branches of government, two of which are elected, yet people pretend we have one vote every four years.
Accountability is one think these people will not take. Has me questioning where they get off calling themselves progressive. They can't even handle the mere suggestion which is evident by the number of downvotes that occurs when it's mentioned.
For sure. It’s also easier to shout into an echo chamber and get an upvote than it is to convince someone in the street to take action. I hold no respect for apathy.
Yeah you'll never know for sure. Actual tankies are what like a small subset of the small percent of progressives. Fractions of a fraction. Statistically they are non-existent. There is an outsized presense online. So one could reason that most of them you encounter are acting in bad faith. It's been a very effective weapon on information warfare.
My philosophy is to abide by the oldest rule of the internet. Don't feed the trolls.
So when they agree to vote for Trump's demands, they're fundamentally better? Gutting Section 230 is the better choice because Trump said it, but they voted for it? Appointing Trump's batshit cabinet picks? Bombs are inherently less deadly if a D signed off on it instead of a R?
Is my governor, Newsom of California, inherently better for being a democrat as he invites Republicans like actual open nazi and helper of Trump's rise to power, Steven Bannon? Is he inherently better when he agrees with Charlie Kirk that trans people don't have a place in society? Giving them not just a soap box, but a microphone and a speaker to the masses, and agreeing with them?
This is better? Agreeing to their demands and pretending you're not helping their fascism?
You did not answer my question, please try again with a bit more brain power.
Is my governor better for inviting Republican dipshits and agreeing with them, because he's a Democrat? Are bombs used for murder better with a Blue pen instead of a Red pen?
And Bernie and AOC are cool, they won't be any positions of power because of Schumer and Pelosi.
I literally have never once praised Trump. I am saying "If Democrats are voting yes with his fasicst demands, they are doing a bad job at stopping Trump."
bernie and aoc are not in a position of power now because you encouraged people not to vote for them
Point to me ever once saying "Do not vote for Bernie or AOC" in my entire account history. Any and all of it. Please, if it's so clear as day, use my words against me. Screenshot it so I can't edit or delete it too. Document me lying to you and the public.
Let me make it clear: Trump is evil. If someone agrees with him, they are complicit in his evil. That includes, voting for his demands. That includes giving him what he wants drawn up by Republican house/senators, and voting with it.
I like Al Green. I like AOC. I like Bernie. I like Booker. They have stood up for my kind more than most politicians. If the entire Democratic party was filled with them, I'd have a lot less to complain about. Instead we have Schumer saying he won't vote yes on Trump's demands, and then last minute gives Trump what he wants. Instead we have Pelosi in a hospital voting to prevent AOC from gaining rank in the House.
Once again, is my governor, promoting actual, unironic Nazis who enabled Trump's rise of power good for America because he's a Democrat? Richard Bannon literally sig heiled to Trump 2 weeks before the podcast episode featureing and agreeing with him. Is this good?
And please try to use grammar and spelling like we do when we speak English.
you seem a little confused; quite typical of myopic socialists that can't see beyond the current protest
the OP was about how people like yourself raged against the democrats by taking fundamentalist positions that made you predictably blind to the bigger picture of preventing the actual fascists getting to power and shooting the causes you thought you were supporting in the foot, and causing other immeasurable damage
and you're still doing it!
attempt to wrap your head around that, i know looking more than 1 move ahead really isn't your forte
Hell lemme help you, here's a post from 3 days ago, unedited, saying I want more Democrats to be like Bernie and AOC, and stop voting for Trump's bills.
EDIT: I'm gonna catch some Z's because I'm not gonna stay up waiting for you to gather a lack of evidence to support claims you made up in your own head. Might as well try to accuse me of being DB Cooper or something else.
I’m just punching right. Tell the Dems to stop standing there.
And it was the Dems who sued the socialist candidate off of the ballot in my state. Not the GOP. They occupy leftist space to prevent leftward movement, while Dems ally with the GOP to push through fascism.
Bernie and AOC are democrats. The Republicans and Democrats, although I could understand arguments against this, are humans. They can be greedy, shitty, liars, awesome, for the people and and for the oligarchs.
I'm always a little suspect when someone in the face of the r's having convicted rapists, some of them pedos, on their platform, taking away constitutional rights, and tanking the stock market, say the left is too right. Are they? Some, but let's focus on putting out the fire, not the dumpsters paint job.
I don't know who you think the left is, or what actions you associate with putting out the fire.
I believe that the Democratic party leadership is extremely hostile to socialist policies, despite their enormous populist electoral power. Universal healthcare is good policy and good politics. So are jobs guarantees and basic minimum incomes and paid sick leave and free college. I have found that most Democrats who have the power to decide whether they would like voters to associate them with these policies or would like to avoid being associated with them choose the later.
I'll vote for the lesser of two evils, because I'm a highly educated supervoter news junkie. But ultimately what costs Democrats their power was not the criticism and anger I and people like me posted online: it was ignoring that criticism when we were warning them that they were running unpopular candidates on unpopular platforms.
As far as I'm aware, conversations like this one are not hindering the good guys. What's hindering the good guys is their choices and lack of integrity. The reason people like Chuck Schumer can't stop Trump is not because I point out that he's incapable of stopping Trump. It's the other way around. I point that out because despite all efforts on the part of people like me, Chuck Schumer is unable to decide to stop Trump. That's an internal problem and most critics of Democrats -- which now includes most Democratic voters -- are just spectators pointing to this problem.
Technically, no, Bernie is an independent who caucuses with dems and runs on their presidential primary ticket. But Bernie supports the dems and I'm with Bernie Sanders on like 95% of policy.
"Tankies" made no measurable difference in the 2024 election. There's next to none of them in the USA. Go ahead: ask real people in your offline life what a tankie is, and see if even one single person has even heard that word.
Unless, of course, you're just applying that word to anyone whos not a Republican that's criticizing the dems. Then I suppose you'll find "tankies" everywhere.
It feels like a word that's just being used to divide the left.
It’s the lib version of “woke”; it’s not even used for its original meaning anymore
“All the tankie college kids who love Hamas lost Kamala the election” ok Kristen I’m sure they’re tankies. Please just finish watching your DVR of the Today show
Thank you for clarifying, because I was confused. Like... 'Are the Tankies in the room with us now, OP?'
What you're saying sounds correct, because I don't know anyone to the left of Harris who didn't recognize that Trump was worse. While I think that I might have one friend who refused to vote for her in a swing state, I think that the BlueAnon folks really misunderstood the actual consequences of losing support on the left.
It wasn't really, imo, that those folks wouldn't show up. The problem was that I think a lot of folks never realized how much young blue-haired leftists dragged Biden across the finish line in 2020 by knocking on doors and convincing their uncles to vote Dem. I said throughout the election that losing those people wasn't really a risk of losing their votes, it was a risk of losing the core enthusiasm and turnout organizing that Democrats had largely outsourced to Bernie Sanders' base. And I could be wrong, but all that I've seen seems to affirm that this is exactly what happened.
If someone has evidence otherwise, though. please let me know.
What you’re saying sounds correct, because I don’t know anyone to the left of Harris who didn’t recognize that Trump was worse. While I think that I might have one friend who refused to vote for her in a swing state, I think that the BlueAnon folks really misunderstood the actual consequences of losing support on the left.
I do find it funny that .world and their ilk will swear up and down that Blue MAGA and BlueAnon aren't real things, but then will swear Tankies are a thing non-stop in American politics when none of them can agree on what they look like or do.
You ask a Republican to define woke, you wont get an answer beyond "Anything I don't like to the left of me." You ask a Democrat on here to define Tankie, you won't get an answer beyond "Anything I don't like to the left of me."
So long as the person doesn't defend authoritarianism and any hypocrisy of their preferred candidate, I'll consider them an ally to me.
Tankies aren't left, the word means exactly what it has always meant: supporters of Russian and Chinese Dictatorships. People who would side with the Tanks in their respective massacres of civilians.
I really wish we lived in a world where psyops and social media made no difference in elections.
If it's "always meant supporting Russia" but the term was coined when Russia was run by the communist party and part of the USSR? Do you not think the communist that supported Russia "the Tankies" would be against the capitalist Oligarchy that Russia currently is?
You're just using a term to mean what you want it to. Definitely not what it's "always meant".
Lemmygrad, ML, and Hexbear Tankies support all three with no distinctions.
Economically Russia has transformed structurally it has not. More specifically it has regressed due to Putin ignoring term limits and empowering a loyal Oligarchy. Putin has even said publicly that he wants to restore the former Russian Empire.
Lemmygrad, ML, and Hexbear Tankies support all three with no distinctions.
Hahahahaha. You haven't visited those instances one single time, I guarantee. I'm a Hexbear user, and it's patently obvious that you haven't even bothered to check. Hexbear users routinely criticise Putin for being the fascist scum he is. He's attacking the rights of women and minorities, defundign the welfare state, and enacting policy exclusively on behalf of oligarchs. What hexbear/ML/grad users don't do, is uncritically swallow russophobic state propaganda (e.g. claims of "evil Russian ghost fleet destroying internet cables with anchors, backed up by 0 evidence whatsoever), and they will not put the interests of the imperialist west above those of the imperialist Russia, as libs routinely do such as clapping in support of war budgets of the EU going to Rheinmetall.
Economically Russia has transformed structurally it has not
Literal braindead take. A capitalist oligarchy DID NOT EXIST in the USSR. Policies of universal free healthcare, universal free education to the highest level, universal good pensions, and fostering of unionisation, are all incompatible with a system that's ruled by an "oligarchic minority profiting from the rest". That's why those things were all dismantled as soon as capitalism was restored. Russia suddenly started engaging in unequal exchange by importing cheap labour and products from the global south (which would have been beneficial in all economic senses for the USSR but it didn't do because of its strong anti-imperialist stance)... There's a million things proving the structural change. But you're too russophobic and too bootlicker of the west to understand any of that or to do any reading on the topic.
You literally cannot point to "high ranking families" in the USSR because there was not such a thing. Tell me, what did Stalin's son rule over? Khruschchev's? Maybe Brezhnev's? Nothing. You're just making shit up as you speak because gommunism bad. Meanwhile, the US has literally family clans in politics (Clintons, Bush, Kennedys). Every accusation is a confession.
one brutal dictator
Stalin was brutal... if your source is US State Department propaganda / Wikipedia (same thing). If you're genuinely interested in learning about the red scare lies you've absorbed as a westerner (there's a reason why Stalin isn't demonized in places like South America or most of Asia), I recommend you to check out the ongoing podcast episodes of Proles Pod called The Stalin Eras, or Dominico Losurdo's book "Stalin; The History and Critique of a Black Legend". If you're willing to have an honest and open discussion on the topic, feel free to bring up any questions or points that you want to make
There are definitely tactics being used to divide the left and the word tankie is not one of them. Purity politics is the death of left wing politics. The fact that people moved out of the way of blocking a legitimate facist government because Harris wasn't quiiite right is utter insanity
There are definitely tactics being used to divide the left and the word tankie is not one of them. Purity politics is the death of left wing politics.
Why, then, are we running around calling people tankies when that is an ill-defined word that tends to change from person to person? I've seen it applied to everyone from left anarchists to starry-eyed idealists who call themselves communists, to actual Stalin-Did-Nothing-Wrong types (this last group deserves criticism, all twelve of them).
The fact that people moved out of the way of blocking a legitimate facist government because Harris wasn’t quiiite right is utter insanity
Focusing on an incredibly online, vocal minority is insanity, especially when your previous statement is about purity politics.
Shouldn't you question why Harris and the democratic establishment couldn't beat actual fascism? Could it be that Trump used real issues in our political environment for his messaging? He lies constantly about why the cost of living is going up, why good jobs aren't here anymore, etc, but Harris ran on a platform of "Vote for me, nothing will fundamentally change" and voters didn't find that attractive for some reason.
The democratic party has been shifting right for decades, and the only messaging they have to offer is that approved by their donors. It's bullshit and it repels people.
Are you of the opinion that the propaganda last election made Trump's victory inevitable? As in, there were no possible candidate or campaign that could have beaten him?
I'm just interrogating your statement. Yes, oppositional propaganda is a known phenomenon. It isn't new. If you are campaigning for election, your job is to overcome it somehow and win. Harris wasn't lacking funds and she had the (arguable) advantage of running from an incumbent administration, as well as the advantage of running against a clown like Trump.
There were loud and numerous warnings to and criticisms of her campaign from the left. She ignored that. I can't prove that's definitely what cost her the election, but there is no question that she could have run a very different campaign. Blaming her loss on propaganda is weak and defeatist. Find ways to win, not excuses to lose.
So you’re just gonna sit there and act like propaganda influence on voters is not a thing
You chose to speak to me, someone who is talking about the word tankie and it's application here. If you'd like to talk about "propaganda influence" outside of the word tankie, I invite you to make your own top-level comment.
If you're implying tankies themselves have amazing propaganda brainwash powers that caused Harris to lose the election, I invite you to touch grass.
What a stupid post. Yeah it's progressives' fault mango Mussolini is POTUS /s. This is a talking point manufactured by MAGA handlers that some broadly Dem-supporting people choose to broadcast, now outside the US. This is a type of brainrot that undermines critical thinking, divides the left, and helps elect the right. Canada deserves better
People are alive today that remember the times without restriction very very clearly. Namely the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the following welfare programs that saved or improved millions of lives, politicians on the right want to tear that down.
Anyone else. Throw Bernie's half animated corpse up there as the candidate. Congrats he would've won. Because he wasnt a cop trying to get elected to the anticop party, nor far right economically trying to get elected to the center right party.
The fact you're reduced her to a cop is showing you're headfirst in the koolaid
She was literally responsible for police reform. You know, shit like making them wear body cams and undergo training to recognise bias, as well as community programs to get people back into the community as opposed to branded criminals for life. You know, the shit you want to happen. And all that for one state - one of your most progressive.
She’d even proudly declared herself California’s “top cop” in 2016 —two years after the Ferguson protests. Marcotte has things backward. In a climate where Democrats still felt they had to pander to the law-and-order crowd, “Kamala is a cop” was the nuance.
These legitimate critiques, not trolls hiding behind computer screens, gave the “Kamala is a cop” meme its power. Black Americans, who have wildly disproportionate contact with police and prisons, had cause to be wary of a presidential candidate, even a Black woman, who not only made her bones in the criminal justice system but adduced her work there to the case for her presidency. On Black Twitter, the meme was a reminder, not an explanation. Early on, Harris struggled to attract Black voters. Some were concerned about her electability, while others were truly mistrustful of her record and her promise to be the “progressive prosecutor” candidate.
At 00:32:19 her speech begins, which has (via the transcript):
ELECTED FIRST WOMAN OF COLOR TO BE DISTRICT ATTORNEY IN STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN 2003. [APPLAUSE] AND I NOW STAND BEFORE YOU AS THE TOP COP OF THE BIGGEST STATE IN THE COUNTRY, NO OFFENSE ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN. [LAUGHTER]
Bernie's name wasn't on my ballot so he couldn't have been a viable opponent. The only person on the ballot with any chance of beating Trump was Harris.
Bear in mind, I think the Dems could have run a much a stronger ticket with someone other than Harris but that doesn't change the fact that she was the only viable competition in the election that actually happened.
Cool, you know you can write in the candidate, right?
In any case if dems wanted to be elected, they could try not being republican. Even in the face of fascism no self respecting person would vote for a republican.
Bernie is too old, didn't want to run. AOC was too young until less than a month before the general election, didn't want to run. Andrew Yang is actually kind of a weirdo in the bad take a look closer (check out the description of his Forward Party).
At the moment, yes. I'm also frequently wrong, there's too much information in the world for me to process it all, so that's the best conclusion I can make with the information I have.
If you can make an argument for anyone else being a more viable candidate against Trump, then give it to me.
This is bullshit though, please actually explain how Kamala is the most viable opposition to Trump? Trump is far right, and Kamala is a centrist conservative. America is further right than you think it is, Kamala is in no way shape or form an opposition.
Kamala is right wing. Trump is further right wing, guess who is gonna win?
You mentioned opposition, then where is your opposition party? Trump is a by product, you just explained how you get fascism.
Just a Wealth tax lmfao, and thats it? Fuck. How'd that work out?
Shes a neoliberal and def right wing. America is so far right wing you think anyone that calls themself a democrat is an opposition. America's two party system keeps going further right
They didn't say both parties were the same. In fact they made a point to distinguish the two I think. They just said both were right wing. There's lots of different right wing parties in the world. They're not all the same. Not even remotely the same.
They did not distinguish the parties in any meaningful way. Right and left are just labels, and if you make your entire personality about purity testing most of the world into not being left enough to be in your in-group, you will cultivate no worker solidarity.
She was objectively much better than Trump. Hopefully in the future Americans have the single transferable vote for presidential elections so they can vote for other candidates in other parties.
Anti- Biden/Kamala influencers helped elect Trump. The biggest of those influencers were the mainstream media. The double standard of reporting (Biden/Harris vs Trump) is very well documented. (And the ring-kissing is approaching authoritarian levels now.) Ideas that actual grassroots would-be Democrat voters sabotaged the the Democrats' success in the election is much less certain, but perhaps a more attractive version of reality than the big-money-funded pro right-wing system we're up against. Less in-fighting amongst the left please
Progressives are separate from tankies. You can have leftist ideals without supporting authoritarians.
You must understand that under first-past-the-post the party that receives the most criticism tends to lose. It's much easier to pressure democrats into doing the right thing then with republicans.
There was a lot of pressure for the most banal, milquetoast, form of representation ever in the form of having a Palestinian speaker at the Democratic national convention with a vetted speech that involved nothing that would have criticized Israel at all.
Even that was too far.
Either the progressives are powerful enough that you have to take them seriously and give them concessions, or they aren't and you get to ignore them.
What you don't get to do is give them nothing and blame them when you lose. Or, I guess you do if you'd prefer to lose the general over letting a progressive win the primary.
Huh, funny that, who knew there is a lot of levers and controls that a primary winner, even one that lost the general, gets.
Tankie is in no way a pejorative for Progressive. Hell progressives are usually the ones using it. I wouldn't even say tankies pretend to be Progressive.
Progressives are not leftists, they are centrist liberals. No matter how many times Sanders calls himself a socialist, he is never going to call for abolishing private ownership of the means of production.
.world definitely has a problem distinguishing between Tankies and leftists. I've literally had a guy argue with me that tankie and Bernie Bro were interchangeable because, "definitions change."
I was once called a tankie just for critiquing the fact that Kamala didn't clearify her positions on her campaign website, even though I voted for her anyway the fact that I didn't show unquestioning loyalty to the party makes me a tankie... Wait a minute... Demanding unquestioning loyalty to the party... Where have I heard that before?
That’s because nobody is called “tankie” in real life. No one has called me a “tankie” either. The term’s contemporary usage is a creature of social media. It’s a dumb, cringey online meme.
As always, point me towards someone supporting Trump on here and I promise I'll give them an earful. There just aren't a lot of them on here. If I spend less time arguing against voting for Trump it's for the same reason I don't spend much time on here arguing against puppy murdering - because most people already agree that murdering puppies/voting for Trump is bad.
Sorry for disrupting the circlejerk, I guess? Like yeah I guess we could spend all our time denouncing puppy murderers and complementing each other over being enlightened enough to recognize puppy murder as bad, but I'd really rather not.
https://lemmy.world/c/conservative is described in the sidebar as, "A community to satirize conservtive and right-wing “ideals”." So no, that's not serious.
I guess I just need to find the one that's "somewhere else." As I said, point me towards someone supporting Trump and I'll give them an earful." Notably I did not say, "vaguely reference the existence of a conservative boogeyman and I will scour all ends of the fediverse until I find a community with single digit subscribers and I'll give them an earful."
The fact that you can't even point me to it proves my point exactly. Even if it is out there somewhere, it isn't large enough for people to see and engage with on a regular basis. Also, you're clearly not seeking them out either, so it seems pretty hypocritical to expect me to do so.
I think that's kind of the point. In all my time on .ml, I saw daily posts and comments that were anti-Harris/Biden (and for very good reason). I never saw one that was explicitly anti-Trump. I assumed because he is very pro-Putin.
So, to make your analogy more accurate, it's like everyone focusing on puppy-murder #1 and ignoring puppy, cat and goldfish murderer #2 because he also likes my sports team.
Like, it's super easy... Fuck Biden because he allowed Palestinian genocide, but fuck Trump too because he has advocated for worse. I rarely, if ever, saw the latter on .ml.
Unless things have gotten better for the Palestinians since he took office. It doesn't seem to be the case, but I sincerely hope so.
Wow...came out awfully aggressive there (which I guess is part of why ml gets such hate). I'm more than willing to admit I'm wrong. I'm just sharing my experiences in the ml community. Lots of good stuff going on there, but there's definitely some issues.
I've seen you a lot and I know you like to pick fights, but I'm mostly on your side. All I said was I never really saw any explicit anti-Trump sentiment. The absence of it is just weird. You cherry-picked a couple lines and never addressed that observation.
You attempted to discredit my claim (with no proof), then said I missed the point of the analogy (with a terrible false-equivalence).
You attacked the idea that ml is pro-Trump (which I never claimed).
Then you brought out the tired liberal brianrot line, assuming incorrectly that I am a liberal. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so fucking wrong.
If you want to engage in good faith, I'm here. I think you're a pretty smart dude, but ignoring some of the problems of the ml community doesn't help it grow and affect more good.
P.S. I haven't been on ml in a few months. If there are any anti-Trump posts, I would love to read them. I could be way off base here.
You attacked the idea that ml is pro-Trump (which I never claimed).
I never saw one that was explicitly anti-Trump. I assumed because he is very pro-Putin.
Right. So you said that the reason that you didn't see anti-Trump content on .ml is because he's pro-Putin, but how could I possibly interpret that as you claiming that .ml was pro-Trump?
then said I missed the point of the analogy (with a terrible false-equivalence).
It's not a "false-equivalence." You can't just drop "false-equivalence" and dismiss any comparison you don't like, you have to actually explain why it isn't equivalent.
People don't say things that don't need to be said, and things don't really need to be said if everyone reading them already agrees with the thing. I don't go around randomly saying things like, "wood comes from trees," or, "the sun is hot," or, "puppy murder is bad." That doesn't imply that I think wood doesn't come from trees or that I think the sun is cold or that murdering puppies is good, and if anyone came around saying any of those things, I would very firmly correct them on it.
What you're trying to claim is that us not circlejerking about Trump being bad - something that's already widely agreed upon in our spaces - means that we're pro-Trump. Oh, excuse me, your claim isn't that we're pro-Trump, it's that we give preferential treatment to Trump because he's pro-Putin, important distinction 🙄. The same logic could be used to argue that we - or .world, or any other instance or community - is pro-puppy murder because there aren't enough posts denouncing it (even though if anyone who was actually pro-puppy murder came around they'd be banned immediately).
P.S. I haven’t been on ml in a few months. If there are any anti-Trump posts, I would love to read them. I could be way off base here.
Thanks for the links. THAT is something actually substantive that goes against the narrative in the OP.
I'll try to explain the errors in your interpretation and expand on the false-equivalence claim tomorrow.
I (*very explicitly and vocally not a communist) left .ml because of all the shit flinging from .world and yes sometimes .ca, among others. It was the only negative experience I had in over a year of keeping my account there that was related to where my account was.
And here we are again, the monthly "Tankies are the bane of Lemmy!!11!!" post, wherein we have:
People who claim to not know what the term means.
People arguing about what the term means.
People arguing about what the term should mean.
People who swear they've never met one on Lemmy.
People who apparently find them so often it ruins Lemmy for them.
A lot of assumptions about folks just for being members of .ml.
In sum, a lot of angst over something people can solve themselves if they are truly that aggrieved, by blocking individual users or the entire instance.
Fucking A people, you largely control your own experience on the Fediverse, that's one of the things that makes it great.
In addition, when choosing an instance (both times) I made sure to pick one that was defederated from Threads, because that was important to me. I'm sure there are instances that are defederated from .ml. If blocking the entire instance yourself or individual users yourself is somehow not enough, no one is stopping you from picking an instance that is defederated from .ml or asking your instance admin (who may very well tell you to FO as is their right) to defederate.
Edit: And you are welcome to search my username at .ml and see how much of what I posted was anti-Trump. Spoiler alert: nearly all of it.
I'm not sure if you meant to reply to me. I never said anything about Tankies, although I can see how offering my observations as a small critique of .ml could be seen as tacitly agreeing with the OP.
First of all, I'm sorry you left ml because of external pressure. That's not right or fair. I guess there's some truth in all the leftist infighting memes.
I agree with practically everything you said, particularly the comparison between 'tankie' and 'woke'. I don't utilize any blocking, though, because I like to be open to all viewpoints.
I hate crawling someone's history, but since you asked I did take a look. It's great to see that kind of content. I should have been more specific, but my .ml observations are older than your history (mainly the run-up to the US election). So, admittedly, I'm a bit guilty of "A lot of assumptions about folks just for being members of .ml" since I haven't been there in months.
Right. So you said that the reason that you didn’t see anti-Trump content on .ml is because he’s pro-Putin, but how could I possibly interpret that as you claiming that .ml was pro-Trump?
Because you became instantly defensive and jumped to a conclusion. I get it. There are a lot of people that are rabidly against ml. I'm offering one small critique based on my observations there. One more time, just to be clear, I saw a ton of anti-Biden/Harris chatter and practically zero anti-Trump. This does not mean ml is pro-Trump. I am not claiming and never claimed ml is pro-Trump. I'm not saying that I saw pro-Trump content. It was just this weird black hole of direct criticism surrounding him. Now, this was all in the lead up to the US election, so I'm happy to see that perhaps this has changed (based on your links).
It’s not a “false-equivalence.” You can’t just drop “false-equivalence” and dismiss any comparison you don’t like, you have to actually explain why it isn’t equivalent.
Sorry, I thought it was fairly obvious. I was speaking about specific anti-Biden/Harris vs anti-Trump content. You tried to generalize it back to puppy murder. Those two things are not equivalent. Let's ditch the analogy. If I understand you correctly, you are saying it's good enough to criticize the bad actions the US is taking without having to denounce each and every bad actor and I mostly agree. What I'm saying is I saw specific (well-deserved) criticisms of, for example, how terrible Harris would for Palestine, but most brushed aside comments about how bad Trump would be. I saw people trying to get commentors to say one bad thing about Trump and they just wouldn't do it. I mean, at that point, it's dance monkey dance so I can understand how they would dig in their heels.
I really wanted to like it there and I think I'll give it another shot. It just seemed, at least during the election, the point was more to destabilize than to actually further leftist ideals.
This does not mean ml is pro-Trump. I am not claiming and never claimed ml is pro-Trump. I’m not saying that I saw pro-Trump content. It was just this weird black hole of direct criticism surrounding him. Now, this was all in the lead up to the US election, so I’m happy to see that perhaps this has changed (based on your links).
It just seemed, at least during the election, the point was more to destabilize than to actually further leftist ideals.
I don't have a lot of patience for this style of communication. If you have something to say, say it. You're just accusing us of shit while dancing around it and acting all "Who, me? Why, I would never suggest such a thing," while plainly suggesting it. The accusation that you're trying to get people to believe is that .ml gave preferential treatment to Trump with the intent of helping him to win and cause instability. So stop trying to split hairs and pretend that you're not accusing us of being pro-Trump and say it to my face.
You tried to generalize it back to puppy murder. Those two things are not equivalent. Let’s ditch the analogy.
The analogy is valid, so no, let's not.
If I understand you correctly, you are saying it’s good enough to criticize the bad actions the US is taking without having to denounce each and every bad actor and I mostly agree.
No, this isn't what I'm saying. Please read what I said again.
What I'm saying is that our opposition to Trump is already understood so there's not really a lot of reason to just reiterate it over and over, with everyone agreeing with each other. That's not how discourse works. Uncontroversial, mutually understood points are boring and unnecessary to repeat.
We do, of course, denounce Trump. You know, when it comes up. The same way, if you ask me if grass is green, I'll tell you yes, but I'm not just going to walk up to you and go, "Hello, grass is green." I assume that since that analogy doesn't help your conclusion, it's a "false equivalence" and you'll say we should "just ditch it."
I saw people trying to get commentors to say one bad thing about Trump and they just wouldn’t do it.
Did you now? I'd love to see a link to that. My standard is, "If someone claims something happened on the fediverse without providing a link, they’re lying."
So stop trying to split hairs and pretend that you’re not accusing us of being pro-Trump and say it to my face.
I'm not sure how I can be more clear. I will try a more direct, succinct approach. I AM NOT ACCUSING YOU (OR ML) OF BEING PRO-TRUMP. I'm saying I observed a lack of anti-Trump sentiment in the run up to the election RELATIVE to the anti-Harris rhetoric. That is all. Lack of "anti" sentiment DOES NOT EQUAL "pro" sentiment.
No, this isn’t what I’m saying. Please read what I said again.
Apologies for misrepresenting you. That's why I tried to remove the imperfect analogy and talk actual facts.
What I’m saying is that our opposition to Trump is already understood so there’s not really a lot of reason to just reiterate it over and over, with everyone agreeing with each other.
That's a perfectly reasonable viewpoint. What I don't understand, then, is that MLs opposition to Biden and Harris were also understood, yet it was reiterated again and again.
Did you now? I’d love to see a link to that. My standard is, “If someone claims something happened on the fediverse without providing a link, they’re lying.”
Being able to remember exactly which approximately 7 month old post it was and dredge up the exact comment is a tall order. I don't bookmark this stuff to use as gotchas months later. It probably involved a couple of you big dogs like brain or flyingsquid.
This has all gotten wildly off base, though. This is my only claim: In the run-up to the US election, I observed a lack of anti-Trump sentiment in the run up to the election relative to the anti-Harris rhetoric. It was extremely frustrating then as those of us that had to deal with his first term saw the danger and now as I have to deal with these fascists dismantling my country.
Now, you can claim I'm full of shit, that I'm wrong, that there was exactly as much anti-Trump rhetoric as anti-Biden/Harris, that I moved the goalposts by not initially stating this was months ago (fair), but that is what I saw and why I left. Obviously, .world has it's own issues, but I've spent entirely too long on this site already.
The accusation that you’re trying to get people to believe is that .ml gave preferential treatment to Trump with the intent of helping him to win and cause instability.
Edit: I just reread this part and should address it.
The accusation that you’re trying to get people to believe is that .ml gave preferential treatment to Trump with the intent of helping him to win and cause instability.
You're correct. I've posited a couple theories trying to make sense of the imbalance of critiques and that is one of them. I have no proof of that and should just stick to the facts. Thanks for pointing that out.
Perhaps. I'm smart enough to know that, like everyone else, I can be fucking stupid sometimes.
I was deliberate to use the word assumed, because it was just based on a hunch. That hunch, however, was predicated on observations of how nothing critical could ever be said of Russia.
For example, I was confused about how everyone was (rightly) denouncing the invasion of Palestine, but not the invasion of Ukraine. The most explicit reason I ever received was, apparently, Ukraine is just chock full of Nazis and Putin is simply liberating the innocent Ukrainians. I know there is a lot of history to distill and this is not the best forum for it. It just seems like such a waste of lives on all sides.
So, it stands to reason since ml is reticent to criticize anything about Russia and I see a lack of criticism about Trump (who is buddy buddy with Putin), that may be the cause.
I know your main shtick is to be incendiary, but I just thought I would expand on my reasoning just in case you wanted to have a human conversation.
In regards to Trump, by measuring it relative to the critiques of other liberals, especially when they are in a race for the US presidency.
If there’s more criticism of Dems, it’s because opposition to Trump is already consensus, so there isn’t really more to say about the matter, where as people on Lemmy still have some support for the Dems.
Extremely well said, and a good point. I'm not sure it explains everything, but it's something I should definitely consider.
To people who view politics as a spectator sport rather than a power structure for changing the material world, you gotta keep cheering for the home team and booing for the away team, until the end of time.
Seriously blaming the tankies again? How bourgeoisie of you lol
If you want to blame something, blame the media. Both news and social media have completely sold out for profit. You CANNOT have a democracy if vast parts of your population is being misinformed. And this started with talk radio in rural areas many decades ago. And the democrats did nothing - because they are not left. Thanks for all the empty "Hope and Change" Obama!
So yeah, blame socialists all you want but their critique was valid.
You need a revolution or reformation. A massive change in who owns the means of communication to have a free press again that is not purely profit driven. Can you even imagine that? Is that something you would say? No. You'd rather blame and denigrate socialists and call them tankies. Look at the mass protests, it seems the libs aren't even calling for Trump to step down and demand new election lol. People would rather bow to unjust laws and simplistic principles than believe in democracy. Of course they are all being stage managed.
I thought Democrats were better than Republicans because Democrats will at least listen. Why would I waste my time criticizing the side that doesn't listen.
Republicans are always evil. They don't do anything good. Ever. They're a known quantity. That's what we expect of them.
We expect the Dems to be better. And they get the smoke when they fail at that. Cutting Corp taxes. Border crackdowns. Genocide. Those are things that should exclusively be the pervue of Republicans. If dems run to the right they will always lose because the right was so triggered by Obama that policy doesn't matter to them whatsoever. It's purely teamsport for them. You can't appeal to them in any way. They see a (D) and vote against that person. Dems would never lose another election if they went only as far left as Bernie Sanders. We would have a perpetually booming economy and a high standard of living. But even that is far too far for the DNC Services Corp. So we get a gameshow host and a car salesman destroying everything.
To reduce infighting amongst the democrats, create official avenues for grievances and disagreements to be settled that can actually influence party platform and trajectory without tearing the movement apart.
This is literally the purpose of the party. People who are quick to disclaim the democrats' corruption have never been to a DNC meeting. It takes more than one person, and it takes more than one meeting, but that's literally what it's there for.
I see a lot of shitting on the Democrats (which, surprise, helps republiQans) but I don't see a lot of discussion about meeting. I don't see a lot of "join us for the ___ meeting on ____ ". Just a ton of idiot garbage like "libz! voting is a sham. they all hate Palestinians"
And that's the thing, the Dems losing doesn't teach them any lesson, they're not going to pivot to the left because they lost, they'll only double down on neoliberalism.
Yeah i wish I could confidently tell you no you are wrong. Which is why we cant place hopes in DNC. This is not about dems winning. Its about gop losing. Once they are out. Let them dnc get their what they deserve.
From the DNC's perspective, going left lost against Nixon of all people, during a deeply unpopular war. Going left was crushed by Regan. Both Bush presidents won by attacking centrist candidates from the right. Clinton ran very centrist campaigns and won. Obama was at best more practical than ideological. Carter and Biden picked up the pieces of disasters, but that didn't translate in to long term gains, and neither of them got credit for what wins they delivered the left.
I agree the DNC should go left, but I understand it's hard to make the case based on the last 60 years of experience.
Anyone basing strategy on the last sixty years instead of the last four is too stupid to be taken seriously. Hence the US' reputation as he dumbest nation.
I'd reply that anyone can justify any conclusion if they're allowed to pick and choose the evidence under consideration. We should aim to produce a political theory that accounts for decades of history and change.
Sure... But that political theory is still explicitly illegal in the US and can get you imprisoned if you manage to get elected. Barring the obvious, we can't base our political theory on entirely different material conditions experienced by entirely different people. The number of voters that were alive 60 years ago is miniscule, and the number of voters that voted 60 years ago is going to be less than 1% in the next election.
Even supposing those people were physically still alive their material conditions have changed so dramatically they aren't the same voters.
By ignoring the change of conditions and change of voters mentality, you set yourself up for 'surprise' failures, like clinton in 2016, which all leftists knew clinton would lose.
If you just look at the last four years and the material conditions people face, you're far less likely to overvalue old elections that have nothing whatsoever in common with modern elections.
I mean they still not right. Just diet version.
To use cars as analogy,
Its like hybrid car is better but than gas but what we want is EV running on renewables. Meanwhile people getting most inefficient gas machine from mad max out of spite.
Nancy Pelosi was in a hospital in Europe and actively blocked AOC from taking a leadership role right after the election. The fucking Democrats censured the single member of their party that called Trump out on his BS during his victory lap. Then Schumer shit the bed a couple weeks ago.
Establishment Dems are actively preventing any kind of progress, all while whining about how we need to do something!
But just to put in perspective, 1 side said ill f over 1 group and other side said "ill do way more than that casual". And in fact since 2 months of getting in are actively trying to f over the world.
Voting DNC was also temp truce against GOP. I rather be mildly disappointed than fearing for future. If DNC won ill be pushing for more progressive stuff but now we got to work to get nation back to "normal". Its like wanting to plant a tree but some jerk poured sand in the hole. Now we got to undo this crap before progress can happen.
If so many people refused to vote for Democrats because they were too far right, then the Dems should have moved left. If Leftists are too small a group to matter and the Dems are right to court the right then stop complaining when Leftists don't vote for you. You can't have it both ways.
Dems are not progressive they move to who votes. Team lefty hate the choices so opt out. Meanwhile DNC sees right voters consistently vote and move to court them. DnC is not on our side they are on their side. They said they are not the opposition party.
We all know that. But they are opportunists so more left votes since they will move left. Especially if the GOP is no longer a viable option. Hence why I say turn on them after the GOP is voted to hell.
Like bruh try won’t learn but let’s get rid of Satan/Hitler first. And ill be first to turn on them.
The democrats have literally funded far-right republican candidates because they know you're operating on this logic. Trump himself was part of this "pied piper" strategy.
Yup as other said they will move to lose before they go left. Think about why that is. Cause if the gop is gone they are the next target. So they do crap like everyone mentioned. They just want donations. GOP is their boogeyman.
The strategy outlined is vote to make gop not viable. Then progressive dems will have more free to form new party. Threat of gop prevents this. Afterwards DNC replaces gop as right party. If that plan doesnt sit well with you please vote third party. Its a drop in bucket but oceans are made of drops.
Honestly I don't understand the logic of that approach at all. What makes you think the GOP will eventually become nonviable? I feel like people making this argument in the past relied on the assumption that young people and minorities would always be consistent democratic voters, but that hasn't held up, because they blew it. If you recognize them as being shit, then what gives you the confidence in them to think that they'll achieve total political dominance?
If that plan doesnt sit well with you please vote third party. Its a drop in bucket but oceans are made of drops.
I do, and I appreciate you respecting this choice.
Very fair point and i acknowledge it could 100% be naive if demographics dont age out gop members. But I do. Why? Well personal experience. 2016 I hated dnc and got swooped up in the Donald. 8 years later I tried to explain to everyone this is the same crap and not to be deceived. My message didn't reach but people may learn the hard way. If next election stays the same demographics then I got to find a new path. Cause you're right.
As for political dominance, There are only 2 viable choices. At some point age out and constant right moves the DNC will be the less radical right party. Plus mixed with blue no matter who (for a few years anyway), 3 stock market crashes with gop presidents in 20 years, measles out breaks, and I suspect stronger hurricanes etc, they cant keep it up.
If those 20 mil votes for biden came for Harris or even third party there would have been a huge shake up like I described above could have come sooner. Don't let anyone discourage your vote!
constant right moves the DNC will be the less radical right party.
I don't believe it works that way, if it did, Kamala and Clinton would've both won. The DNC is already the less radical right party.
The problem is that voters are more complex than a fixed point on a left/right axis that votes for whoever's closer to them. For instance, when Democrats pivoted to the right on immigration and tried to pass themselves off as border hawks, what happened was that they threw away a moral argument that they had previously used to criticize the Republicans. People didn't say, "Oh, now that the Democrats have come around on immigration, I'll vote for them," they said, "You were calling them racist over this not long ago, but now you're adopting the same stance? So the Republicans were right and your criticism was opportunistic and full of shit. Why should I trust your criticism of them on other points?" They actually tried to criticize the Republicans from the right on the issue, citing the fact that the Republicans didn't go along with Biden's anti-immigration bill and saying, "We're the ones who actually want to secure the border, they're all talk." Nobody really bought it, and ofc if you were pro-immigration you were expected to still vote Democrat since it's taken for granted that they're the "lesser evil." Meanwhile, this led to a collapse in support among Hispanics, many of whom were willing to support the Democratic party on the basis that Trump's anti-immigration stance was racist, but when the Democrats shifted right on that issue, many didn't see a significant difference on that front and voted Republican because they were more aligned on other, cultural issues.
3 stock market crashes with gop presidents in 20 years, measles out breaks, and I suspect stronger hurricanes etc, they cant keep it up.
I don't have that much faith in the average voter. The democrats will have an advantage in the next presidential election (although they could fuck it up), but after that, like 7 years from now, people won't remember or care - just like they didn't care enough about Trump's first term to not elect him again.
I mean, that's the way it works with a two party system where they both suck. People see the Republicans sucking and turn to the Democrats because they're the only other option. Then they see the Democrats sucking and turn to the Republicans because they're the only other option. You can't just rely on the other side being bad because if they're not in charge, people will forget how bad they are. You have to go all the way back to Reagan and H.W. to find a time with two consecutive presidents of the same party - and recently, people haven't even been going for incumbents, it's been switching back and forth every four years.
I agree with your points. Not to sound misogyny but I strongly believe it was too early for women. Need a mass die off of elderly jerks before ill believe it. Black men had voting rights before women and we just got a half black president only very recently.
People just need to see past last 4 years or even few months and know what dems are.
Dem betrayal is expected. Don't bother holding them to higher standard. They are lesser evil. Don't get annoyed and not vote. Vote third party if anything. Don't let the greater evil win ever. We do that we will get ratchet effect. Like you described.
Tankies want Hitler to win and the country to collapse. They are like evangelicals deeply wanting the apocalypse to happen to punish all the people who didn't agree with them.
Your analogy is even more apt than that. A lot of them are accelerationists/anti-electoralists too, who hold the faith-based belief that making the world worse will magically cause the working class to unite and overthrow their oppressors. The belief is based upon the words of a dead authoritarian and has no historical data to suggest that it is remotely accurate. They are happy to give vulnerable populations as blood sacrifices because of their faith in it somehow resulting in a better world.
This is a common misconception, but leftists and liberals do not share interests. Liberals are reactionaries who wish to return to a previous status quo they enjoyed, same as conservatives, but they disagree about what point to return to.
Leftists seek to move forward and dismantle capitalism. Liberals would rather (and often do) ally with conservatives to defeat leftist goals, because they know no society enjoying the fruits of post-capitalism would wish to return to the Obama era.
Lol, it's kinda funny, I might not be fully awake, but I read this as "if they [the democratic party] weren't willing to do the bar minimum [not supporting a genocide] to stop Trump... At best, they’re useful idiots for the fascists."
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?
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.
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)
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.
"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.
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.
Republicans are going to republican. Democrats at least have the pretense of representing their constituents interests.
It's like if an oil tanker that takes ten miles to stop was bearing down on a small passenger ferry. Sure it might be the fault of the tanker's crew but they can't stop and they won't stop. The democrats driving the ferry have the capacity to easily save everyone on board and simply refuse to do so. That's why people shout at them.
Great. See us in 8 years when you're supporting a dem who wants 8 active genocides above a repub who wants 10 active genocides. This is what your weird version of liberal "pragmatic" utilitarianism will get you.
I'll leave you with some Mike Davis:
In biology, one learns about a certain species of caterpillar that can only cross the threshold of metamorphosis by seeing its future butterfly. Proletarian subjectivity does not evolve by incremental steps but requires nonlinear leaps, especially by way of moral self-recognition through solidarity with the struggle of a distant people. Even when this contradicts short-term self-interest, as in the famous cases of Lancashire cotton workers’ enthusiasm for Lincoln and later for Gandhi, such efforts not only anticipate a world beyond capitalism, they concretely advance the working class’s march toward it.
Socialism, in other words, requires nonutilitarian actors, whose ultimate motivations and values arise from structures of feeling that others would deem spiritual. Marx rightly scourged romantic humanism in the abstract, but his personal pantheon — Prometheus and Spartacus, Homer, Cervantes, and Shakespeare — affirmed a heroic vision of human possibility.
Nice strawman. Americans wouldn’t have to choose one of two subpar options if they actually had proportional representation. That way the people can avoid the aipac politicians completely without throwing away their vote.
A strawman, you say? How unfair of me. Let me confirm with you first.
If, in 8 years (assuming your grand plans for ranked choice or whatever have yet to take hold), the choice is between a democrat who wants 8 genocides and a republican who wants 10, which would you vote for?
Seems to be a lot of talk here about authoritarianism.
Is demanding responsible speech over free speech absolutism "tankie"?
....because the US is demonstrating exactly what happens when you give free speech to fascists and don't monitor their "religion".
The thing is that they don't govern. The MAGA crowd does nothing. There's no constructive legislation. Everything proposed is to remove some imaginary barrier that keeps society from running well, but they make things worse. Even with good legislation, some people are wronged, and get left behind. Conservatives use the bad stories to justify doing nothing good.
The whole narrative with firing "unelected government bureaucrats" who are ruining our lives is BS from the start. The "unelected government bureaucrats" are simply employees doing the bidding of our elected officials. Trump has every right to pursue an agenda of shutting down institutions and culling the herd of government employees - he won the election. The correct way is through Congressional legislation. The problem is, that he and Musk/Doge DO NOT have the support of the people. The MAGATS know the legislation would never pass with the approval of the people, through their elected representatives - so they go about doing things illegally.
Honestly the fact that the entire country keeps getting mad at Democrats while taking an "Aw shucks, who hasn't tried to do a coup de tat or shifted blame for your actions onto a minority group. All is forgiven!" Attitude with Republicans, is...
Tankies would unironically promote known Russian asset Jill Stein in actual left communities and then turn around and unironically talk about electing Trump in Hexbear and Lemmygrad, because he's friendlier with Xi Jinping.
Punching down by portraying people you theoretically want on your side as villains is not a winning strategy for anyone left of centre. Dividing people only helps the right, no matter who is doing it. I don't even think ordinary folks who've been conned into believing (Maple) MAGA-esque propaganda should automatically be bashed in every case-- just persons in positions of significant power. The priority should always be to seek opportunities to genuinely win folks over.
A U.S. President is literally trying to recreate the conditions of 1930s Germany by tanking the economy and isolating us from our international partners.
Stop looking for someone to blame and put out the current dumpster fire before it catches the grease.
Get out and protest. Get your boots on the ground.
I dont know what you would expect anyone to say. Is there some surprise piece of wisdom about GOP politics that literally everyone in the country doesnt already know?
Question: If you are in a country outside the US; And you unironically love china you see them as a viable alternative to America , as a market and for their technological achievements; are you considered by Americans to be a Tankie? I've always had the idea that "Tankie" equals "traitor" in the eyes of Americans.
Not to invalidate your point but your metaphor suggests that tankies should care about capitalist status symbols. By that logic, you gave the wrong arguments.
Republicans ran on a purely populist agenda, that resonated with many non voters. If Dems had an ounce of sense, instead of digging their heel on 'vote losing' points, they would have acknowledged the merit of those populist rhetoric to defang republicans.
The population is being dumbed down by our education system and smart devices/ social media. In addition to that, Republicans' media strategy completely dominated with this election cycle. Democrat campaigns were being run like all of them were a bunch of seniors citizens who couldn't navigate the current media environment.
Republicans controlled the narrative on most all of the issues.
Committing genocide and Imperialist plunder on the entire planet is being "slightly corrupt?" Moreover, where are the Communists that don't also hate the Republicans?
As is tradition. In the Weimar Republic the communists were far too busy fighting the social democrats to put up any meaningful resistance against the Nazis.
Yeah I wonder if there was a reason the communists were fighting both the nazis and 'social democrats,' and had to spend more time fighting the larger group that was openly funding the nazis.
Just a reminder that communists weren't the ones to appoint nazis to power; anti communists were. The ones that thought violence is never the answer and we should just vote harder if we don't want fascists in power.
And everytime those people get power fascists get power shortly after. Maybe it's not financially funding, but anti'tankies' are responsible for every instance of fascism taking power. Because equality and equity scares you people.
Liberals have been the only people in world history to choose fascism over any form of communism, since fascism doesn't threaten their world view.
This includes the dem party in the US who picked clinton, biden, and harris, three far right shit stains, instead of anyone slightly centrist or left wing.
Not that the distinction bears much value making: They funded the proto-Nazis.
In the time period in question (After WW1, Wiemar Germany) the social democrats were in direct coalition with right wing paramilitaries.
Those paramilitaries did some extrajudicial killings and some just so happened to form things like the S.A. and the Nazi party. (And tried to overthrow the social democrats government a number of times by military coup.) Erich Ludendorff is a notable figure to this period.
But by the time the proto-Nazis had murdered themselves and others enough to become the Nazis, no, the social democrats were no longer in alliance, but mostly after the second coup attempt.
this is one of the biggest problems on the left, granted these people generally do bitch about trump and his admin.
The problem is that they bitch about everyone, short of lenin literally rising from the dead, nobody would ever sate their hunger for bloodlust, they only wish to see the world burn so they can be angry about it.
OFC this one is a bit more specific to the commie left, but this is also generally true amongst the left as well, we're too busy bitching about stupid shit, to actually do anything productive most of the time.
It pisses me off to no end when people conflate legitimate criticism of Democrats with tankie rhetoric. The Dems are complacent, listless, corrupt, and lazy. They refuse to stand up to the Republicans until it's too late or doesn't matter.
The people want progressive politics: universal healthcare, living wage, affordable housing, education, and food. We want a sustainable future and an end to corporate greed.
The donor class, superpacs, and other sources of dark money in politics are what keep nearly everyone corrupt. Its addictive.
Last election season went something like this:
Progressives: "Please stop sending weapons to a genocidal maniac who is using them to murder children in order to grab land. And stop actively protecting said genocidal maniac from consequences in the international community."
Establisment: "STFU tankie!"
Completely wrong, Tankies weren't just promoting primarying Biden, a pretty obvious lost cause from the start given his incumbent status, they were promoting voting against Biden in the generals. That is NOT advocacy against genocide in Gaza. Trump is a single-state supporter.
Except that there are 2 groups: progressives and a more extreme left group. Progressives who were arguing in good faith against genocide were lumped in with the latter group.
The establishment Democrats were engaging in censorship and suppression of anything that was critical of Israel. Now Trump has stepped up this censorship/suppression, but it was definitely happening under Biden.
I'm a consequencialist, so while I acknowledge there is a minority of extremists who think burning down the state itself is progressive, I personally don't view them as such. If anything I think those extremists were being prodded along and supported by the conservatives who benefit from splitting the left and also agitated by Tankie psyops who benefit from the USA's fall from grace.
Just elect 60 democrats to the senate so we can get universal healthcare, reduce homelessness, tax the rich, reform the courts, expand ballot access, draw fair election maps, remove money from elections, protect human rights, and protect the environment. Everything I just listed are core DNC stances. If we can't do that then we're just going to suffer on this wild ride until societal collapse and replacement with something worse.
Incorrect, Biden sold Tank Munitions to Israel, but the nuance here is that Tankies has always described militarily aggressive, dictatorship loving, self-proclaiming Communists otherwise that would be fair.
To even bring up Biden is whataboutism.
Maybe if progressives in partisan primary states registered as Democrats and voted in the primaries, they wouldn’t be complaining about all the centrists in office.🤔
Are you implying there was a Democratic presedential primary that didn't break it's own rules to make sure Biden was the only candidate on the ballot (edit) in many states (/edit)?
If so, you're living in a fantasy.
This is the one-two step for Democratic party apologists.
Blame leftists for their lack of representation in the party.
Rig the processes to make sure that the left wing of the party has no internal representation.
Goto step one.
The best part of this dance from their view? Internal party politics and processes are boring, and the media won't cover it when they cheat.
No. The presidential incumbent primary is a joke. I’m referring to the congressional primary that saw less than 20% attendance. Congress is the primary approval for military aid for Israel. POTUS can use drawdown power, but that can be challenged by Congress.
We have three branches of government, two of which are elected, yet people pretend we have one vote every four years.
lmfao I love when liberals are fully committed
Firstly, I’m a progressive. Secondly, what is incorrect about that statement?
What if i told you, you could get more done towards your moral project if you werent an absolutionist? Would you continue?
That sounds like tankie rhetoric
So you're ok with centrists supporting and actively protecting perpetrators of genocide?
What about my comment gave you that impression? I’m saying that if progressives voted in Democratic primaries with the same conviction they use to criticize the DNC, we wouldn’t have as many centrists in Congress.
Democratic congressional primaries are decided by ~20% of registered Democrats. You can look at PAC funding and vote for the Democrat that isn’t funded by AIPAC, who will have a better chance of winning the election than a third-party protest vote.
My point is that Democrats, whether progressive or centrist, shouldn't be supporting this. It shouldn't matter (on this particular topic) if progressives aren't voting; I'm not willing to give centrist Democrats a pass and will condemn them just the same.
I keep hearing that progressives aren't voting in the numbers that they should be, but there might be another problem: there simply aren't that many progressives to get offices. As a "Reddit refugee", I realized that we are overrepresented in a lot of these online echo chambers.
I’ve been left of the Democrats and stumping progressives/greens/independents since the 90s. Most people don’t even know if they live in one of the 30 partisan primary states. Copious amounts of New Yorkers were turned away at the polls in 2016 because they didn’t know they had to be registered as a Democrat to vote for Bernie in the primary. I’m sure that happened in other partisan primary states as well.
Yet in my experience, asking a progressive to register as a Democrat is the fastest way to get them to stop listening, even though it’s statistically far more effective than voting third-party. People need to stop voting with their feelings and start playing the game that we’ve been losing for decades.
What primary? The DNC shut down real primaries last election. To the point where undecided was the protest vote.
A race between Biden, Williamson, and Phillips isn’t a real primary.
A real primary would have been something like Biden, Newsom, Whitmer, and maybe Shapiro.
There is no point voting in a rigged primary.
The presidential incumbent primary is a joke. I’m referring to the congressional primary that saw less than 20% attendance. Congress is the primary approval for military aid for Israel. POTUS can use drawdown power, but that can be challenged by Congress.
We have three branches of government, two of which are elected, yet people pretend we have one vote every four years.
Accountability is one think these people will not take. Has me questioning where they get off calling themselves progressive. They can't even handle the mere suggestion which is evident by the number of downvotes that occurs when it's mentioned.
For sure. It’s also easier to shout into an echo chamber and get an upvote than it is to convince someone in the street to take action. I hold no respect for apathy.
That exactly what you're doing
Here, yes. This is far from all that I do.
That's cause "tankie" is right wing propaganda for exactly that reason. It blunts progressive discourse dead in its tracks.
What's worse is that sometimes I can't tell if it's Right Wing trolls or truly insane hard leftists.
I consider myself hard left progressive, but I have caveats like anyone. Tankies are so cartoonish, I don't know how to react.
Yeah you'll never know for sure. Actual tankies are what like a small subset of the small percent of progressives. Fractions of a fraction. Statistically they are non-existent. There is an outsized presense online. So one could reason that most of them you encounter are acting in bad faith. It's been a very effective weapon on information warfare.
My philosophy is to abide by the oldest rule of the internet. Don't feed the trolls.
and yet they are head and shoulders above the trump cult
anyone that can't see that or chooses to campaign and vote against the democrats is so corrupted by socialist fundamentalism that they enabled fascism
So when they agree to vote for Trump's demands, they're fundamentally better? Gutting Section 230 is the better choice because Trump said it, but they voted for it? Appointing Trump's batshit cabinet picks? Bombs are inherently less deadly if a D signed off on it instead of a R?
Is my governor, Newsom of California, inherently better for being a democrat as he invites Republicans like actual open nazi and helper of Trump's rise to power, Steven Bannon? Is he inherently better when he agrees with Charlie Kirk that trans people don't have a place in society? Giving them not just a soap box, but a microphone and a speaker to the masses, and agreeing with them?
This is better? Agreeing to their demands and pretending you're not helping their fascism?
you couldn't see the difference before the election and you still can't see the difference now?
for real?
come ooooon
at least talk about bernie and aoc or something vaguely convincing
You did not answer my question, please try again with a bit more brain power.
Is my governor better for inviting Republican dipshits and agreeing with them, because he's a Democrat? Are bombs used for murder better with a Blue pen instead of a Red pen?
And Bernie and AOC are cool, they won't be any positions of power because of Schumer and Pelosi.
you're still campaigning so hard for trump, this is what i mean about how corrupt the socialists are
to answer your questions: bombs are all the same. you don't have to agree with all dems to see they are better than the cult
but you can't see that?
bernie and aoc are not in a position of power now because you encouraged people not to vote for them
the logic is pretty simple
I literally have never once praised Trump. I am saying "If Democrats are voting yes with his fasicst demands, they are doing a bad job at stopping Trump."
Point to me ever once saying "Do not vote for Bernie or AOC" in my entire account history. Any and all of it. Please, if it's so clear as day, use my words against me. Screenshot it so I can't edit or delete it too. Document me lying to you and the public.
Let me make it clear: Trump is evil. If someone agrees with him, they are complicit in his evil. That includes, voting for his demands. That includes giving him what he wants drawn up by Republican house/senators, and voting with it.
I like Al Green. I like AOC. I like Bernie. I like Booker. They have stood up for my kind more than most politicians. If the entire Democratic party was filled with them, I'd have a lot less to complain about. Instead we have Schumer saying he won't vote yes on Trump's demands, and then last minute gives Trump what he wants. Instead we have Pelosi in a hospital voting to prevent AOC from gaining rank in the House.
Once again, is my governor, promoting actual, unironic Nazis who enabled Trump's rise of power good for America because he's a Democrat? Richard Bannon literally sig heiled to Trump 2 weeks before the podcast episode featureing and agreeing with him. Is this good?
And please try to use grammar and spelling like we do when we speak English.
Booker voted to fund Israel, unfortunately. He's not the worst, and is in the limelight right now, but he's got a mixed and spotty voting record.
Some stuff I can forgive, but not supporting genocide.
I say this fully aware that I voted for Harris because I know she'd have been better than Trump.
you seem a little confused; quite typical of myopic socialists that can't see beyond the current protest
the OP was about how people like yourself raged against the democrats by taking fundamentalist positions that made you predictably blind to the bigger picture of preventing the actual fascists getting to power and shooting the causes you thought you were supporting in the foot, and causing other immeasurable damage
and you're still doing it!
attempt to wrap your head around that, i know looking more than 1 move ahead really isn't your forte
Hell lemme help you, here's a post from 3 days ago, unedited, saying I want more Democrats to be like Bernie and AOC, and stop voting for Trump's bills.
EDIT: I'm gonna catch some Z's because I'm not gonna stay up waiting for you to gather a lack of evidence to support claims you made up in your own head. Might as well try to accuse me of being DB Cooper or something else.
lol, hope you had a good sleep, x
I’m just punching right. Tell the Dems to stop standing there.
And it was the Dems who sued the socialist candidate off of the ballot in my state. Not the GOP. They occupy leftist space to prevent leftward movement, while Dems ally with the GOP to push through fascism.
Yep, generalizations work across the board. /s
Bernie and AOC are democrats. The Republicans and Democrats, although I could understand arguments against this, are humans. They can be greedy, shitty, liars, awesome, for the people and and for the oligarchs.
I'm always a little suspect when someone in the face of the r's having convicted rapists, some of them pedos, on their platform, taking away constitutional rights, and tanking the stock market, say the left is too right. Are they? Some, but let's focus on putting out the fire, not the dumpsters paint job.
I don't really know what to do with this comment.
I don't know who you think the left is, or what actions you associate with putting out the fire.
I believe that the Democratic party leadership is extremely hostile to socialist policies, despite their enormous populist electoral power. Universal healthcare is good policy and good politics. So are jobs guarantees and basic minimum incomes and paid sick leave and free college. I have found that most Democrats who have the power to decide whether they would like voters to associate them with these policies or would like to avoid being associated with them choose the later.
I'll vote for the lesser of two evils, because I'm a highly educated supervoter news junkie. But ultimately what costs Democrats their power was not the criticism and anger I and people like me posted online: it was ignoring that criticism when we were warning them that they were running unpopular candidates on unpopular platforms.
As far as I'm aware, conversations like this one are not hindering the good guys. What's hindering the good guys is their choices and lack of integrity. The reason people like Chuck Schumer can't stop Trump is not because I point out that he's incapable of stopping Trump. It's the other way around. I point that out because despite all efforts on the part of people like me, Chuck Schumer is unable to decide to stop Trump. That's an internal problem and most critics of Democrats -- which now includes most Democratic voters -- are just spectators pointing to this problem.
Bernie & AOC are center right at best. They’re both still feverishly advocating for sending more arms to extremists in Europe and the Middle East.
I’m not sure you’ve even seen the left, based on this comment.
...that's not a right wing policy. That's just a policy you don't like.
LoL. So arming far right extremists is a leftwing principle now?
Oh so now they're far right extremists.
Heard a lot of that said about the IRA as well. Ironically mostly funded by american left wingers.
Sounds like you just generally having an issue differentiating good and evil.
Not really, I just know that the difference between "terrorist" and "Freedom fighter" is usually very very political.
Technically, no, Bernie is an independent who caucuses with dems and runs on their presidential primary ticket. But Bernie supports the dems and I'm with Bernie Sanders on like 95% of policy.
"Tankies" made no measurable difference in the 2024 election. There's next to none of them in the USA. Go ahead: ask real people in your offline life what a tankie is, and see if even one single person has even heard that word.
Unless, of course, you're just applying that word to anyone whos not a Republican that's criticizing the dems. Then I suppose you'll find "tankies" everywhere.
It feels like a word that's just being used to divide the left.
It’s the lib version of “woke”; it’s not even used for its original meaning anymore
“All the tankie college kids who love Hamas lost Kamala the election” ok Kristen I’m sure they’re tankies. Please just finish watching your DVR of the Today show
Thank you for clarifying, because I was confused. Like... 'Are the Tankies in the room with us now, OP?'
What you're saying sounds correct, because I don't know anyone to the left of Harris who didn't recognize that Trump was worse. While I think that I might have one friend who refused to vote for her in a swing state, I think that the BlueAnon folks really misunderstood the actual consequences of losing support on the left.
It wasn't really, imo, that those folks wouldn't show up. The problem was that I think a lot of folks never realized how much young blue-haired leftists dragged Biden across the finish line in 2020 by knocking on doors and convincing their uncles to vote Dem. I said throughout the election that losing those people wasn't really a risk of losing their votes, it was a risk of losing the core enthusiasm and turnout organizing that Democrats had largely outsourced to Bernie Sanders' base. And I could be wrong, but all that I've seen seems to affirm that this is exactly what happened.
If someone has evidence otherwise, though. please let me know.
I do find it funny that .world and their ilk will swear up and down that Blue MAGA and BlueAnon aren't real things, but then will swear Tankies are a thing non-stop in American politics when none of them can agree on what they look like or do.
You ask a Republican to define woke, you wont get an answer beyond "Anything I don't like to the left of me." You ask a Democrat on here to define Tankie, you won't get an answer beyond "Anything I don't like to the left of me."
So long as the person doesn't defend authoritarianism and any hypocrisy of their preferred candidate, I'll consider them an ally to me.
Tankies aren't left, the word means exactly what it has always meant: supporters of Russian and Chinese Dictatorships. People who would side with the Tanks in their respective massacres of civilians.
I really wish we lived in a world where psyops and social media made no difference in elections.
If it's "always meant supporting Russia" but the term was coined when Russia was run by the communist party and part of the USSR? Do you not think the communist that supported Russia "the Tankies" would be against the capitalist Oligarchy that Russia currently is?
You're just using a term to mean what you want it to. Definitely not what it's "always meant".
Lemmygrad, ML, and Hexbear Tankies support all three with no distinctions.
Economically Russia has transformed structurally it has not. More specifically it has regressed due to Putin ignoring term limits and empowering a loyal Oligarchy. Putin has even said publicly that he wants to restore the former Russian Empire.
Hahahahaha. You haven't visited those instances one single time, I guarantee. I'm a Hexbear user, and it's patently obvious that you haven't even bothered to check. Hexbear users routinely criticise Putin for being the fascist scum he is. He's attacking the rights of women and minorities, defundign the welfare state, and enacting policy exclusively on behalf of oligarchs. What hexbear/ML/grad users don't do, is uncritically swallow russophobic state propaganda (e.g. claims of "evil Russian ghost fleet destroying internet cables with anchors, backed up by 0 evidence whatsoever), and they will not put the interests of the imperialist west above those of the imperialist Russia, as libs routinely do such as clapping in support of war budgets of the EU going to Rheinmetall.
Literal braindead take. A capitalist oligarchy DID NOT EXIST in the USSR. Policies of universal free healthcare, universal free education to the highest level, universal good pensions, and fostering of unionisation, are all incompatible with a system that's ruled by an "oligarchic minority profiting from the rest". That's why those things were all dismantled as soon as capitalism was restored. Russia suddenly started engaging in unequal exchange by importing cheap labour and products from the global south (which would have been beneficial in all economic senses for the USSR but it didn't do because of its strong anti-imperialist stance)... There's a million things proving the structural change. But you're too russophobic and too bootlicker of the west to understand any of that or to do any reading on the topic.
Right instead of a few high ranking families and one brutal dictator the USSR was run by...
A few high ranking families and one brutal dictator...
Fucking tankies bro stg
You literally cannot point to "high ranking families" in the USSR because there was not such a thing. Tell me, what did Stalin's son rule over? Khruschchev's? Maybe Brezhnev's? Nothing. You're just making shit up as you speak because gommunism bad. Meanwhile, the US has literally family clans in politics (Clintons, Bush, Kennedys). Every accusation is a confession.
Stalin was brutal... if your source is US State Department propaganda / Wikipedia (same thing). If you're genuinely interested in learning about the red scare lies you've absorbed as a westerner (there's a reason why Stalin isn't demonized in places like South America or most of Asia), I recommend you to check out the ongoing podcast episodes of Proles Pod called The Stalin Eras, or Dominico Losurdo's book "Stalin; The History and Critique of a Black Legend". If you're willing to have an honest and open discussion on the topic, feel free to bring up any questions or points that you want to make
There are definitely tactics being used to divide the left and the word tankie is not one of them. Purity politics is the death of left wing politics. The fact that people moved out of the way of blocking a legitimate facist government because Harris wasn't quiiite right is utter insanity
Why, then, are we running around calling people tankies when that is an ill-defined word that tends to change from person to person? I've seen it applied to everyone from left anarchists to starry-eyed idealists who call themselves communists, to actual Stalin-Did-Nothing-Wrong types (this last group deserves criticism, all twelve of them).
Focusing on an incredibly online, vocal minority is insanity, especially when your previous statement is about purity politics.
Shouldn't you question why Harris and the democratic establishment couldn't beat actual fascism? Could it be that Trump used real issues in our political environment for his messaging? He lies constantly about why the cost of living is going up, why good jobs aren't here anymore, etc, but Harris ran on a platform of "Vote for me, nothing will fundamentally change" and voters didn't find that attractive for some reason.
Even when voices within the party point out problems they are shouted down. Sure, Bernie is an independant, but he's been voting with the Dems the entire time, and they even pretended to let him run for nomination for president.
The democratic party has been shifting right for decades, and the only messaging they have to offer is that approved by their donors. It's bullshit and it repels people.
So you're just gonna sit there and act like propaganda influence on voters is not a thing
"Oh why could harris not beat fascists why did trump win i guess she just suuucked" is the awareness level of a potato
Are you of the opinion that the propaganda last election made Trump's victory inevitable? As in, there were no possible candidate or campaign that could have beaten him?
That's a question that sets up its own answer as a foregone conclusion. Rephrase please.
I'm just interrogating your statement. Yes, oppositional propaganda is a known phenomenon. It isn't new. If you are campaigning for election, your job is to overcome it somehow and win. Harris wasn't lacking funds and she had the (arguable) advantage of running from an incumbent administration, as well as the advantage of running against a clown like Trump.
There were loud and numerous warnings to and criticisms of her campaign from the left. She ignored that. I can't prove that's definitely what cost her the election, but there is no question that she could have run a very different campaign. Blaming her loss on propaganda is weak and defeatist. Find ways to win, not excuses to lose.
You chose to speak to me, someone who is talking about the word tankie and it's application here. If you'd like to talk about "propaganda influence" outside of the word tankie, I invite you to make your own top-level comment.
If you're implying tankies themselves have amazing propaganda brainwash powers that caused Harris to lose the election, I invite you to touch grass.
Having standards isn't "purity politics". Having no standards got us here.
What a stupid post. Yeah it's progressives' fault mango Mussolini is POTUS /s. This is a talking point manufactured by MAGA handlers that some broadly Dem-supporting people choose to broadcast, now outside the US. This is a type of brainrot that undermines critical thinking, divides the left, and helps elect the right. Canada deserves better
And progressives are not leftists, they are centrist liberals. Sanders is never going to call abolishing private ownership of the means of production.
Because some other db0 user is angry with me and is downvoting everything I say regardless of content.
Left is Progress, Right is Conservation of old ways (Conservative)
Tankies are not Leftists, even
Trump is progressive by that logic because he is dismantling the old ways.
The old ways didn't have a system of laws to prevent discrimination and unethical greed. He is taking us back there.
That's the very old ways. You can't conserve them when they are gone.
Of course one could argue that there has never been a time with a system of laws to prevent discrimination and unethical greed.
People are alive today that remember the times without restriction very very clearly. Namely the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the following welfare programs that saved or improved millions of lives, politicians on the right want to tear that down.
Trump, the farthest right viable candidate, was elected because he got the most votes.
Regardless of your feelings about her, Kamala was the most viable opposition to Trump.
Some people were most active being anti-Kamala.
In your opinion, did the anti-Kamala influencers hurt Trump's election, or did they help Trump's election?
You really believe that, huh?
Who, in our shitty 2 party system, had a better chance?
Anyone else. Throw Bernie's half animated corpse up there as the candidate. Congrats he would've won. Because he wasnt a cop trying to get elected to the anticop party, nor far right economically trying to get elected to the center right party.
The fact you're reduced her to a cop is showing you're headfirst in the koolaid
She was literally responsible for police reform. You know, shit like making them wear body cams and undergo training to recognise bias, as well as community programs to get people back into the community as opposed to branded criminals for life. You know, the shit you want to happen. And all that for one state - one of your most progressive.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election/kamala-harris-police-biden-vp-pick-california-senate-a9662801.html
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/12/kamala-was-a-cop-black-people-knew-it-first/
https://www.c-span.org/program/campaign-2016/new-york-delegation-breakfast/450152
At 00:32:19 her speech begins, which has (via the transcript):
Bernie's name wasn't on my ballot so he couldn't have been a viable opponent. The only person on the ballot with any chance of beating Trump was Harris.
Bear in mind, I think the Dems could have run a much a stronger ticket with someone other than Harris but that doesn't change the fact that she was the only viable competition in the election that actually happened.
Cool, you know you can write in the candidate, right?
In any case if dems wanted to be elected, they could try not being republican. Even in the face of fascism no self respecting person would vote for a republican.
Would love to have whatever drugs you need to think writing someone in would have actually been a good idea
The key wordyou seems to be missing is "viable."
Bernie, AOC, Andrew Yang off the top of my head
Bernie is too old, didn't want to run. AOC was too young until less than a month before the general election, didn't want to run. Andrew Yang is actually kind of a weirdo in the bad take a look closer (check out the description of his Forward Party).
Anybody else?
So you asked for who is better, but since you dont like any of them, they wont do. Rocket dragon is the decider of all things politicians guys.
You should have just said so in the first place and we coulda saved time.
I love Bernie and AOC both, but what's your plan, hold a gun to their head and force them to run?
Which of those 3 were nominated?
I'm not saying they wouldn't have been better options. They simply weren't options.
Gee I wonder why they werent options!
At the moment, yes. I'm also frequently wrong, there's too much information in the world for me to process it all, so that's the best conclusion I can make with the information I have.
If you can make an argument for anyone else being a more viable candidate against Trump, then give it to me.
Exactly what the other guy said.
This is bullshit though, please actually explain how Kamala is the most viable opposition to Trump? Trump is far right, and Kamala is a centrist conservative. America is further right than you think it is, Kamala is in no way shape or form an opposition.
Kamala is right wing. Trump is further right wing, guess who is gonna win?
You mentioned opposition, then where is your opposition party? Trump is a by product, you just explained how you get fascism.
Just a Wealth tax lmfao, and thats it? Fuck. How'd that work out?
Shes a neoliberal and def right wing. America is so far right wing you think anyone that calls themself a democrat is an opposition. America's two party system keeps going further right
But demonrats bad, what's so hard to understand?
"Both parties are the same" is muddying the waters in ways that always benefits the fascists.
They didn't say both parties were the same. In fact they made a point to distinguish the two I think. They just said both were right wing. There's lots of different right wing parties in the world. They're not all the same. Not even remotely the same.
They did not distinguish the parties in any meaningful way. Right and left are just labels, and if you make your entire personality about purity testing most of the world into not being left enough to be in your in-group, you will cultivate no worker solidarity.
She was objectively much better than Trump. Hopefully in the future Americans have the single transferable vote for presidential elections so they can vote for other candidates in other parties.
Anti- Biden/Kamala influencers helped elect Trump. The biggest of those influencers were the mainstream media. The double standard of reporting (Biden/Harris vs Trump) is very well documented. (And the ring-kissing is approaching authoritarian levels now.) Ideas that actual grassroots would-be Democrat voters sabotaged the the Democrats' success in the election is much less certain, but perhaps a more attractive version of reality than the big-money-funded pro right-wing system we're up against. Less in-fighting amongst the left please
Kamala is right wing. Trump is further right wing. Guess who is gonna win?
Progressives are separate from tankies. You can have leftist ideals without supporting authoritarians.
You must understand that under first-past-the-post the party that receives the most criticism tends to lose. It's much easier to pressure democrats into doing the right thing then with republicans.
There was a lot of pressure for the most banal, milquetoast, form of representation ever in the form of having a Palestinian speaker at the Democratic national convention with a vetted speech that involved nothing that would have criticized Israel at all.
Even that was too far.
Either the progressives are powerful enough that you have to take them seriously and give them concessions, or they aren't and you get to ignore them.
What you don't get to do is give them nothing and blame them when you lose. Or, I guess you do if you'd prefer to lose the general over letting a progressive win the primary.
Huh, funny that, who knew there is a lot of levers and controls that a primary winner, even one that lost the general, gets.
No one calls themselves a tankie. It is a pejorative term for a progressive. It is used to silence legitimate criticism and helps right-shift politics
(Edit: I think your frustration is really more with the mainstream media and what news they choose to cover and amplify)
It's the term that describes those communists who cheered on the Soviet Union’s violent crushing of the 1956 Hungary revolution protests.
The term is often used when someone claims they support leftist ideals but pushes for authoritarianism.
I get the original etymology. Nowadays it's carelessly used and appropriated like 'woke'
What about "lib" and "zio"?
Those are kind of new and exciting. All the kids are doing it.
I'm pretty sure those are used accurately as specific types of fascists.
Did you know that was recently revealed (through Trump's jfk doc dump) to be yet another CIA backed fake color revolution?
Tankie is in no way a pejorative for Progressive. Hell progressives are usually the ones using it. I wouldn't even say tankies pretend to be Progressive.
So Bernie and AOC are tankies to you?
So anyone who doesn't engage in Double Genocide Theory, a recognized form of Holocaust denial, is a "tankie".
A tankie is anyone who objects when I do this: shits pants
Wow, lots of tankies in here taking the bait lol
Really not beating the allegations that "tankie" is just an ill-defined snarl word
Progressives are not leftists, they are centrist liberals. No matter how many times Sanders calls himself a socialist, he is never going to call for abolishing private ownership of the means of production.
The difference is we don't expect anything good from Republicans. We expect libs to at least try but they'd rather punch left than effectively govern.
6 months in and Liberals are still trying to blame their election loss on the left.
Ja, this meme is tripe. Tankies are the Lemmy bogeyman, used the same as 'woke' by the right.
What are you talking about? It only mentions democrats, republicans, and tankies.
Tankie is what centrist liberals call everyone to the left of them
No, that's what I call people who claim to be left but then make excuses for Russia, China.
I've never been called a tankie, and neither have any of my friends or girlfriends. And we're all communists.
Maybe you're being called a tankie because you're a radical centrist.
.world definitely has a problem distinguishing between Tankies and leftists. I've literally had a guy argue with me that tankie and Bernie Bro were interchangeable because, "definitions change."
I was once called a tankie just for critiquing the fact that Kamala didn't clearify her positions on her campaign website, even though I voted for her anyway the fact that I didn't show unquestioning loyalty to the party makes me a tankie... Wait a minute... Demanding unquestioning loyalty to the party... Where have I heard that before?
That’s because nobody is called “tankie” in real life. No one has called me a “tankie” either. The term’s contemporary usage is a creature of social media. It’s a dumb, cringey online meme.
Isnt radical centrist an oxymoron?
If centrists wanted criticism of republicans, they could have done that more.
But then they might not have got the endorsement of dick cheney. establishment democrats punched left and embraced the right.
As always, point me towards someone supporting Trump on here and I promise I'll give them an earful. There just aren't a lot of them on here. If I spend less time arguing against voting for Trump it's for the same reason I don't spend much time on here arguing against puppy murdering - because most people already agree that murdering puppies/voting for Trump is bad.
Sorry for disrupting the circlejerk, I guess? Like yeah I guess we could spend all our time denouncing puppy murderers and complementing each other over being enlightened enough to recognize puppy murder as bad, but I'd really rather not.
Feel free to visit the new conservative comms and have at it.
Which one? Do you mean the one that's exclusively anti-conservative posts?
The ee com is the sarcastic one. There's a new one in world, and another new one somewhere else that are both serious.
https://lemmy.world/c/conservative is described in the sidebar as, "A community to satirize conservtive and right-wing “ideals”." So no, that's not serious.
I guess I just need to find the one that's "somewhere else." As I said, point me towards someone supporting Trump and I'll give them an earful." Notably I did not say, "vaguely reference the existence of a conservative boogeyman and I will scour all ends of the fediverse until I find a community with single digit subscribers and I'll give them an earful."
The fact that you can't even point me to it proves my point exactly. Even if it is out there somewhere, it isn't large enough for people to see and engage with on a regular basis. Also, you're clearly not seeking them out either, so it seems pretty hypocritical to expect me to do so.
You're taking this way too seriously. Have a nap or something. Enjoy your day.
Lol.
I think that's kind of the point. In all my time on .ml, I saw daily posts and comments that were anti-Harris/Biden (and for very good reason). I never saw one that was explicitly anti-Trump. I assumed because he is very pro-Putin.
So, to make your analogy more accurate, it's like everyone focusing on puppy-murder #1 and ignoring puppy, cat and goldfish murderer #2 because he also likes my sports team.
Like, it's super easy... Fuck Biden because he allowed Palestinian genocide, but fuck Trump too because he has advocated for worse. I rarely, if ever, saw the latter on .ml.
Unless things have gotten better for the Palestinians since he took office. It doesn't seem to be the case, but I sincerely hope so.
How many posts and comments did you see that were explicitly anti-puppy murder? I think you've missed the point of the analogy.
What? No, absolutely not. Nobody on .ml is pro-Trump, and anyone who was would be attacked and banned in short order.
This is just liberal brainrot where you ignore everything we actually say and assign us made up stances based on your own preconceptions.
Wow...came out awfully aggressive there (which I guess is part of why ml gets such hate). I'm more than willing to admit I'm wrong. I'm just sharing my experiences in the ml community. Lots of good stuff going on there, but there's definitely some issues. I've seen you a lot and I know you like to pick fights, but I'm mostly on your side. All I said was I never really saw any explicit anti-Trump sentiment. The absence of it is just weird. You cherry-picked a couple lines and never addressed that observation.
You attempted to discredit my claim (with no proof), then said I missed the point of the analogy (with a terrible false-equivalence).
You attacked the idea that ml is pro-Trump (which I never claimed).
Then you brought out the tired liberal brianrot line, assuming incorrectly that I am a liberal. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so fucking wrong.
If you want to engage in good faith, I'm here. I think you're a pretty smart dude, but ignoring some of the problems of the ml community doesn't help it grow and affect more good.
P.S. I haven't been on ml in a few months. If there are any anti-Trump posts, I would love to read them. I could be way off base here.
Right. So you said that the reason that you didn't see anti-Trump content on .ml is because he's pro-Putin, but how could I possibly interpret that as you claiming that .ml was pro-Trump?
It's not a "false-equivalence." You can't just drop "false-equivalence" and dismiss any comparison you don't like, you have to actually explain why it isn't equivalent.
People don't say things that don't need to be said, and things don't really need to be said if everyone reading them already agrees with the thing. I don't go around randomly saying things like, "wood comes from trees," or, "the sun is hot," or, "puppy murder is bad." That doesn't imply that I think wood doesn't come from trees or that I think the sun is cold or that murdering puppies is good, and if anyone came around saying any of those things, I would very firmly correct them on it.
What you're trying to claim is that us not circlejerking about Trump being bad - something that's already widely agreed upon in our spaces - means that we're pro-Trump. Oh, excuse me, your claim isn't that we're pro-Trump, it's that we give preferential treatment to Trump because he's pro-Putin, important distinction 🙄. The same logic could be used to argue that we - or .world, or any other instance or community - is pro-puppy murder because there aren't enough posts denouncing it (even though if anyone who was actually pro-puppy murder came around they'd be banned immediately).
Estimated 100 000 In NYC Alone Protesting Today As Part of Nationwide 50501 Protest Against Trump & Musk - 311 upvotes
US stock markets see worst day since Covid pandemic after investors shaken by Trump tariffs - 111 upvotes
Dow drops 1,400 as US stocks lead worldwide sell-off after Trump's tariffs ignite a COVID-like shock - 102 upvotes
China hits back hard at ‘bullying’ Trump tariffs as global recession fears grow - 73 upvotes
All of those were posted within the last 3 days.
Thanks for the links. THAT is something actually substantive that goes against the narrative in the OP. I'll try to explain the errors in your interpretation and expand on the false-equivalence claim tomorrow.
I (*very explicitly and vocally not a communist) left .ml because of all the shit flinging from .world and yes sometimes .ca, among others. It was the only negative experience I had in over a year of keeping my account there that was related to where my account was.
@[email protected] is exactly correct.
And here we are again, the monthly "Tankies are the bane of Lemmy!!11!!" post, wherein we have:
Fucking A people, you largely control your own experience on the Fediverse, that's one of the things that makes it great.
In addition, when choosing an instance (both times) I made sure to pick one that was defederated from Threads, because that was important to me. I'm sure there are instances that are defederated from .ml. If blocking the entire instance yourself or individual users yourself is somehow not enough, no one is stopping you from picking an instance that is defederated from .ml or asking your instance admin (who may very well tell you to FO as is their right) to defederate.
Edit: And you are welcome to search my username at .ml and see how much of what I posted was anti-Trump. Spoiler alert: nearly all of it.
I'm not sure if you meant to reply to me. I never said anything about Tankies, although I can see how offering my observations as a small critique of .ml could be seen as tacitly agreeing with the OP.
First of all, I'm sorry you left ml because of external pressure. That's not right or fair. I guess there's some truth in all the leftist infighting memes.
I agree with practically everything you said, particularly the comparison between 'tankie' and 'woke'. I don't utilize any blocking, though, because I like to be open to all viewpoints.
I hate crawling someone's history, but since you asked I did take a look. It's great to see that kind of content. I should have been more specific, but my .ml observations are older than your history (mainly the run-up to the US election). So, admittedly, I'm a bit guilty of "A lot of assumptions about folks just for being members of .ml" since I haven't been there in months.
Because you became instantly defensive and jumped to a conclusion. I get it. There are a lot of people that are rabidly against ml. I'm offering one small critique based on my observations there. One more time, just to be clear, I saw a ton of anti-Biden/Harris chatter and practically zero anti-Trump. This does not mean ml is pro-Trump. I am not claiming and never claimed ml is pro-Trump. I'm not saying that I saw pro-Trump content. It was just this weird black hole of direct criticism surrounding him. Now, this was all in the lead up to the US election, so I'm happy to see that perhaps this has changed (based on your links).
Sorry, I thought it was fairly obvious. I was speaking about specific anti-Biden/Harris vs anti-Trump content. You tried to generalize it back to puppy murder. Those two things are not equivalent. Let's ditch the analogy. If I understand you correctly, you are saying it's good enough to criticize the bad actions the US is taking without having to denounce each and every bad actor and I mostly agree. What I'm saying is I saw specific (well-deserved) criticisms of, for example, how terrible Harris would for Palestine, but most brushed aside comments about how bad Trump would be. I saw people trying to get commentors to say one bad thing about Trump and they just wouldn't do it. I mean, at that point, it's dance monkey dance so I can understand how they would dig in their heels.
I really wanted to like it there and I think I'll give it another shot. It just seemed, at least during the election, the point was more to destabilize than to actually further leftist ideals.
I don't have a lot of patience for this style of communication. If you have something to say, say it. You're just accusing us of shit while dancing around it and acting all "Who, me? Why, I would never suggest such a thing," while plainly suggesting it. The accusation that you're trying to get people to believe is that .ml gave preferential treatment to Trump with the intent of helping him to win and cause instability. So stop trying to split hairs and pretend that you're not accusing us of being pro-Trump and say it to my face.
The analogy is valid, so no, let's not.
No, this isn't what I'm saying. Please read what I said again.
What I'm saying is that our opposition to Trump is already understood so there's not really a lot of reason to just reiterate it over and over, with everyone agreeing with each other. That's not how discourse works. Uncontroversial, mutually understood points are boring and unnecessary to repeat.
We do, of course, denounce Trump. You know, when it comes up. The same way, if you ask me if grass is green, I'll tell you yes, but I'm not just going to walk up to you and go, "Hello, grass is green." I assume that since that analogy doesn't help your conclusion, it's a "false equivalence" and you'll say we should "just ditch it."
Did you now? I'd love to see a link to that. My standard is, "If someone claims something happened on the fediverse without providing a link, they’re lying."
I'm not sure how I can be more clear. I will try a more direct, succinct approach. I AM NOT ACCUSING YOU (OR ML) OF BEING PRO-TRUMP. I'm saying I observed a lack of anti-Trump sentiment in the run up to the election RELATIVE to the anti-Harris rhetoric. That is all. Lack of "anti" sentiment DOES NOT EQUAL "pro" sentiment.
Apologies for misrepresenting you. That's why I tried to remove the imperfect analogy and talk actual facts.
That's a perfectly reasonable viewpoint. What I don't understand, then, is that MLs opposition to Biden and Harris were also understood, yet it was reiterated again and again.
Being able to remember exactly which approximately 7 month old post it was and dredge up the exact comment is a tall order. I don't bookmark this stuff to use as gotchas months later. It probably involved a couple of you big dogs like brain or flyingsquid.
This has all gotten wildly off base, though. This is my only claim: In the run-up to the US election, I observed a lack of anti-Trump sentiment in the run up to the election relative to the anti-Harris rhetoric. It was extremely frustrating then as those of us that had to deal with his first term saw the danger and now as I have to deal with these fascists dismantling my country.
Now, you can claim I'm full of shit, that I'm wrong, that there was exactly as much anti-Trump rhetoric as anti-Biden/Harris, that I moved the goalposts by not initially stating this was months ago (fair), but that is what I saw and why I left. Obviously, .world has it's own issues, but I've spent entirely too long on this site already.
Edit: I just reread this part and should address it.
You're correct. I've posited a couple theories trying to make sense of the imbalance of critiques and that is one of them. I have no proof of that and should just stick to the facts. Thanks for pointing that out.
Perhaps. I'm smart enough to know that, like everyone else, I can be fucking stupid sometimes.
I was deliberate to use the word assumed, because it was just based on a hunch. That hunch, however, was predicated on observations of how nothing critical could ever be said of Russia.
For example, I was confused about how everyone was (rightly) denouncing the invasion of Palestine, but not the invasion of Ukraine. The most explicit reason I ever received was, apparently, Ukraine is just chock full of Nazis and Putin is simply liberating the innocent Ukrainians. I know there is a lot of history to distill and this is not the best forum for it. It just seems like such a waste of lives on all sides.
So, it stands to reason since ml is reticent to criticize anything about Russia and I see a lack of criticism about Trump (who is buddy buddy with Putin), that may be the cause.
I know your main shtick is to be incendiary, but I just thought I would expand on my reasoning just in case you wanted to have a human conversation.
In regards to Trump, by measuring it relative to the critiques of other liberals, especially when they are in a race for the US presidency.
Extremely well said, and a good point. I'm not sure it explains everything, but it's something I should definitely consider.
To people who view politics as a spectator sport rather than a power structure for changing the material world, you gotta keep cheering for the home team and booing for the away team, until the end of time.
yeah the like 10 tankies in the US really threw that election...? The takes from people on lemmy are so fucking strange.
I'm punching to the right, it's not my fault the Dems are always standing there 🤷
Seriously blaming the tankies again? How bourgeoisie of you lol
If you want to blame something, blame the media. Both news and social media have completely sold out for profit. You CANNOT have a democracy if vast parts of your population is being misinformed. And this started with talk radio in rural areas many decades ago. And the democrats did nothing - because they are not left. Thanks for all the empty "Hope and Change" Obama!
So yeah, blame socialists all you want but their critique was valid.
You need a revolution or reformation. A massive change in who owns the means of communication to have a free press again that is not purely profit driven. Can you even imagine that? Is that something you would say? No. You'd rather blame and denigrate socialists and call them tankies. Look at the mass protests, it seems the libs aren't even calling for Trump to step down and demand new election lol. People would rather bow to unjust laws and simplistic principles than believe in democracy. Of course they are all being stage managed.
But this is just pathetic.
I thought Democrats were better than Republicans because Democrats will at least listen. Why would I waste my time criticizing the side that doesn't listen.
Really..? I feel like all the tankie (tanky?) discourse I've personally seen has only had vile hatred to say about trump. (namely hexbear)
Republicans are always evil. They don't do anything good. Ever. They're a known quantity. That's what we expect of them.
We expect the Dems to be better. And they get the smoke when they fail at that. Cutting Corp taxes. Border crackdowns. Genocide. Those are things that should exclusively be the pervue of Republicans. If dems run to the right they will always lose because the right was so triggered by Obama that policy doesn't matter to them whatsoever. It's purely teamsport for them. You can't appeal to them in any way. They see a (D) and vote against that person. Dems would never lose another election if they went only as far left as Bernie Sanders. We would have a perpetually booming economy and a high standard of living. But even that is far too far for the DNC Services Corp. So we get a gameshow host and a car salesman destroying everything.
This is literally the purpose of the party. People who are quick to disclaim the democrats' corruption have never been to a DNC meeting. It takes more than one person, and it takes more than one meeting, but that's literally what it's there for.
I see a lot of shitting on the Democrats (which, surprise, helps republiQans) but I don't see a lot of discussion about meeting. I don't see a lot of "join us for the ___ meeting on ____ ". Just a ton of idiot garbage like "libz! voting is a sham. they all hate Palestinians"
Very good! And how is that done?
Excellent. And how is that done?
Yeah. Imagine if all these people actually showed up to primaries.
Or motivated non voters to show up to primaries
Imagine if people could trust democrats to run honest primaries.
Oh no dems are not perfect let's Satan/Hitler win to teach them a lesson!
Like bruh try won't learn but let's get rid of Satan/Hitler first. And ill be first to turn on them.
And that's the thing, the Dems losing doesn't teach them any lesson, they're not going to pivot to the left because they lost, they'll only double down on neoliberalism.
DNC logic
DNC will throw an election before moving to the left. Particularly when the topic of discussion involves a certain rogue nation in the Middle East.
Yeah i wish I could confidently tell you no you are wrong. Which is why we cant place hopes in DNC. This is not about dems winning. Its about gop losing. Once they are out. Let them dnc get their what they deserve.
From the DNC's perspective, going left lost against Nixon of all people, during a deeply unpopular war. Going left was crushed by Regan. Both Bush presidents won by attacking centrist candidates from the right. Clinton ran very centrist campaigns and won. Obama was at best more practical than ideological. Carter and Biden picked up the pieces of disasters, but that didn't translate in to long term gains, and neither of them got credit for what wins they delivered the left.
I agree the DNC should go left, but I understand it's hard to make the case based on the last 60 years of experience.
Anyone basing strategy on the last sixty years instead of the last four is too stupid to be taken seriously. Hence the US' reputation as he dumbest nation.
I'd reply that anyone can justify any conclusion if they're allowed to pick and choose the evidence under consideration. We should aim to produce a political theory that accounts for decades of history and change.
Sure... But that political theory is still explicitly illegal in the US and can get you imprisoned if you manage to get elected. Barring the obvious, we can't base our political theory on entirely different material conditions experienced by entirely different people. The number of voters that were alive 60 years ago is miniscule, and the number of voters that voted 60 years ago is going to be less than 1% in the next election.
Even supposing those people were physically still alive their material conditions have changed so dramatically they aren't the same voters.
By ignoring the change of conditions and change of voters mentality, you set yourself up for 'surprise' failures, like clinton in 2016, which all leftists knew clinton would lose.
If you just look at the last four years and the material conditions people face, you're far less likely to overvalue old elections that have nothing whatsoever in common with modern elections.
I mean they still not right. Just diet version. To use cars as analogy, Its like hybrid car is better but than gas but what we want is EV running on renewables. Meanwhile people getting most inefficient gas machine from mad max out of spite.
We see that exact thing happening now. They haven't learned a thing.
Nancy Pelosi was in a hospital in Europe and actively blocked AOC from taking a leadership role right after the election. The fucking Democrats censured the single member of their party that called Trump out on his BS during his victory lap. Then Schumer shit the bed a couple weeks ago.
Establishment Dems are actively preventing any kind of progress, all while whining about how we need to do something!
We need more people involved in primaries and less voting based on TV ads.
If you're willing to sacrifice one minority group to Satan, why should members of other minority groups not believe they are next?
100% agree.
But just to put in perspective, 1 side said ill f over 1 group and other side said "ill do way more than that casual". And in fact since 2 months of getting in are actively trying to f over the world.
Voting DNC was also temp truce against GOP. I rather be mildly disappointed than fearing for future. If DNC won ill be pushing for more progressive stuff but now we got to work to get nation back to "normal". Its like wanting to plant a tree but some jerk poured sand in the hole. Now we got to undo this crap before progress can happen.
If so many people refused to vote for Democrats because they were too far right, then the Dems should have moved left. If Leftists are too small a group to matter and the Dems are right to court the right then stop complaining when Leftists don't vote for you. You can't have it both ways.
Dems are not progressive they move to who votes. Team lefty hate the choices so opt out. Meanwhile DNC sees right voters consistently vote and move to court them. DnC is not on our side they are on their side. They said they are not the opposition party. We all know that. But they are opportunists so more left votes since they will move left. Especially if the GOP is no longer a viable option. Hence why I say turn on them after the GOP is voted to hell.
The democrats have literally funded far-right republican candidates because they know you're operating on this logic. Trump himself was part of this "pied piper" strategy.
Yup as other said they will move to lose before they go left. Think about why that is. Cause if the gop is gone they are the next target. So they do crap like everyone mentioned. They just want donations. GOP is their boogeyman.
The strategy outlined is vote to make gop not viable. Then progressive dems will have more free to form new party. Threat of gop prevents this. Afterwards DNC replaces gop as right party. If that plan doesnt sit well with you please vote third party. Its a drop in bucket but oceans are made of drops.
Honestly I don't understand the logic of that approach at all. What makes you think the GOP will eventually become nonviable? I feel like people making this argument in the past relied on the assumption that young people and minorities would always be consistent democratic voters, but that hasn't held up, because they blew it. If you recognize them as being shit, then what gives you the confidence in them to think that they'll achieve total political dominance?
I do, and I appreciate you respecting this choice.
Very fair point and i acknowledge it could 100% be naive if demographics dont age out gop members. But I do. Why? Well personal experience. 2016 I hated dnc and got swooped up in the Donald. 8 years later I tried to explain to everyone this is the same crap and not to be deceived. My message didn't reach but people may learn the hard way. If next election stays the same demographics then I got to find a new path. Cause you're right.
As for political dominance, There are only 2 viable choices. At some point age out and constant right moves the DNC will be the less radical right party. Plus mixed with blue no matter who (for a few years anyway), 3 stock market crashes with gop presidents in 20 years, measles out breaks, and I suspect stronger hurricanes etc, they cant keep it up.
If those 20 mil votes for biden came for Harris or even third party there would have been a huge shake up like I described above could have come sooner. Don't let anyone discourage your vote!
I don't believe it works that way, if it did, Kamala and Clinton would've both won. The DNC is already the less radical right party.
The problem is that voters are more complex than a fixed point on a left/right axis that votes for whoever's closer to them. For instance, when Democrats pivoted to the right on immigration and tried to pass themselves off as border hawks, what happened was that they threw away a moral argument that they had previously used to criticize the Republicans. People didn't say, "Oh, now that the Democrats have come around on immigration, I'll vote for them," they said, "You were calling them racist over this not long ago, but now you're adopting the same stance? So the Republicans were right and your criticism was opportunistic and full of shit. Why should I trust your criticism of them on other points?" They actually tried to criticize the Republicans from the right on the issue, citing the fact that the Republicans didn't go along with Biden's anti-immigration bill and saying, "We're the ones who actually want to secure the border, they're all talk." Nobody really bought it, and ofc if you were pro-immigration you were expected to still vote Democrat since it's taken for granted that they're the "lesser evil." Meanwhile, this led to a collapse in support among Hispanics, many of whom were willing to support the Democratic party on the basis that Trump's anti-immigration stance was racist, but when the Democrats shifted right on that issue, many didn't see a significant difference on that front and voted Republican because they were more aligned on other, cultural issues.
I don't have that much faith in the average voter. The democrats will have an advantage in the next presidential election (although they could fuck it up), but after that, like 7 years from now, people won't remember or care - just like they didn't care enough about Trump's first term to not elect him again.
I mean, that's the way it works with a two party system where they both suck. People see the Republicans sucking and turn to the Democrats because they're the only other option. Then they see the Democrats sucking and turn to the Republicans because they're the only other option. You can't just rely on the other side being bad because if they're not in charge, people will forget how bad they are. You have to go all the way back to Reagan and H.W. to find a time with two consecutive presidents of the same party - and recently, people haven't even been going for incumbents, it's been switching back and forth every four years.
I agree with your points. Not to sound misogyny but I strongly believe it was too early for women. Need a mass die off of elderly jerks before ill believe it. Black men had voting rights before women and we just got a half black president only very recently.
People just need to see past last 4 years or even few months and know what dems are.
Dem betrayal is expected. Don't bother holding them to higher standard. They are lesser evil. Don't get annoyed and not vote. Vote third party if anything. Don't let the greater evil win ever. We do that we will get ratchet effect. Like you described.
Your analogy is even more apt than that. A lot of them are accelerationists/anti-electoralists too, who hold the faith-based belief that making the world worse will magically cause the working class to unite and overthrow their oppressors. The belief is based upon the words of a dead authoritarian and has no historical data to suggest that it is remotely accurate. They are happy to give vulnerable populations as blood sacrifices because of their faith in it somehow resulting in a better world.
I hate that i agree you are right.
This is just a meme designed to divide people who share common interests in opposing corruption and to turn them against each other instead.
This is a common misconception, but leftists and liberals do not share interests. Liberals are reactionaries who wish to return to a previous status quo they enjoyed, same as conservatives, but they disagree about what point to return to.
Leftists seek to move forward and dismantle capitalism. Liberals would rather (and often do) ally with conservatives to defeat leftist goals, because they know no society enjoying the fruits of post-capitalism would wish to return to the Obama era.
Lol, it's kinda funny, I might not be fully awake, but I read this as "if they [the democratic party] weren't willing to do the bar minimum [not supporting a genocide] to stop Trump... At best, they’re useful idiots for the fascists."
tell me you don't actually talk to "tankies" without telling me you don't actually talk to "tankies".
Liberals are right wing, what did you expect ? Human levels of intellect ?
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.)
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.
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.
Aye, there's the rub
Republicans are going to republican. Democrats at least have the pretense of representing their constituents interests.
It's like if an oil tanker that takes ten miles to stop was bearing down on a small passenger ferry. Sure it might be the fault of the tanker's crew but they can't stop and they won't stop. The democrats driving the ferry have the capacity to easily save everyone on board and simply refuse to do so. That's why people shout at them.
Anyone that uses the term "Tankie" unironically to refer to people to the left of them and the Democratic party are not a part of the left.
It's always helpful to identify the liberals that are getting "scratched" though.
Yes it was the "slight corruption" that "tankies" are criticizing Dems for. Give me a break.
Republicans have no enemies on the right. Democrats have no friends on the left
Americans are children who get abused by both parents but they think Mom is better because she hits them less.
It will vote for the lesser evil or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it is told. It puts the ballot in the fucking basket!
You can thank the spoiler effect from first-past-the-post for that. I will take 5 lashes with incremental improvements instead of just 20 lashes.
Great. See us in 8 years when you're supporting a dem who wants 8 active genocides above a repub who wants 10 active genocides. This is what your weird version of liberal "pragmatic" utilitarianism will get you.
I'll leave you with some Mike Davis:
Nice strawman. Americans wouldn’t have to choose one of two subpar options if they actually had proportional representation. That way the people can avoid the aipac politicians completely without throwing away their vote.
A strawman, you say? How unfair of me. Let me confirm with you first.
If, in 8 years (assuming your grand plans for ranked choice or whatever have yet to take hold), the choice is between a democrat who wants 8 genocides and a republican who wants 10, which would you vote for?
It seems your real criticisms are about FPTP and the failure of mainstream media
They're on the list, yeah.
Seems to be a lot of talk here about authoritarianism.
Is demanding responsible speech over free speech absolutism "tankie"? ....because the US is demonstrating exactly what happens when you give free speech to fascists and don't monitor their "religion".
The thing is that they don't govern. The MAGA crowd does nothing. There's no constructive legislation. Everything proposed is to remove some imaginary barrier that keeps society from running well, but they make things worse. Even with good legislation, some people are wronged, and get left behind. Conservatives use the bad stories to justify doing nothing good.
The whole narrative with firing "unelected government bureaucrats" who are ruining our lives is BS from the start. The "unelected government bureaucrats" are simply employees doing the bidding of our elected officials. Trump has every right to pursue an agenda of shutting down institutions and culling the herd of government employees - he won the election. The correct way is through Congressional legislation. The problem is, that he and Musk/Doge DO NOT have the support of the people. The MAGATS know the legislation would never pass with the approval of the people, through their elected representatives - so they go about doing things illegally.
Honestly the fact that the entire country keeps getting mad at Democrats while taking an "Aw shucks, who hasn't tried to do a coup de tat or shifted blame for your actions onto a minority group. All is forgiven!" Attitude with Republicans, is...
Just fucking bizarre.
Tankies would unironically promote known Russian asset Jill Stein in actual left communities and then turn around and unironically talk about electing Trump in Hexbear and Lemmygrad, because he's friendlier with Xi Jinping.
I hate Tankies.
Why would you expect media outlets mostly owned by the Oligarchs to criticize the people the oligarchs want to put into power?
Democrats in full force with the projection.
They wouldn’t call themselves slightly corrupt in that case…
"Slightly" hahaha.
Is "slightly corrupt" the new euphemism for "aiding and abetting an ongoing genocide"?
I don't think it sounds right to call non-voters "slightly corrupt".
Punching down by portraying people you theoretically want on your side as villains is not a winning strategy for anyone left of centre. Dividing people only helps the right, no matter who is doing it. I don't even think ordinary folks who've been conned into believing (Maple) MAGA-esque propaganda should automatically be bashed in every case-- just persons in positions of significant power. The priority should always be to seek opportunities to genuinely win folks over.
Look at the division in this thread.
A U.S. President is literally trying to recreate the conditions of 1930s Germany by tanking the economy and isolating us from our international partners.
Stop looking for someone to blame and put out the current dumpster fire before it catches the grease.
Get out and protest. Get your boots on the ground.
I dont know what you would expect anyone to say. Is there some surprise piece of wisdom about GOP politics that literally everyone in the country doesnt already know?
Question: If you are in a country outside the US; And you unironically love china you see them as a viable alternative to America , as a market and for their technological achievements; are you considered by Americans to be a Tankie? I've always had the idea that "Tankie" equals "traitor" in the eyes of Americans.
Not to invalidate your point but your metaphor suggests that tankies should care about capitalist status symbols. By that logic, you gave the wrong arguments.
Yeah that's kinda the meaning of the idiom
Republicans ran on a purely populist agenda, that resonated with many non voters. If Dems had an ounce of sense, instead of digging their heel on 'vote losing' points, they would have acknowledged the merit of those populist rhetoric to defang republicans.
The population is being dumbed down by our education system and smart devices/ social media. In addition to that, Republicans' media strategy completely dominated with this election cycle. Democrat campaigns were being run like all of them were a bunch of seniors citizens who couldn't navigate the current media environment.
Republicans controlled the narrative on most all of the issues.
I miss Al Franken.
Kamala Harris campaigned with Liz Cheney. The fuck is wrong with you?
Committing genocide and Imperialist plunder on the entire planet is being "slightly corrupt?" Moreover, where are the Communists that don't also hate the Republicans?
As is tradition. In the Weimar Republic the communists were far too busy fighting the social democrats to put up any meaningful resistance against the Nazis.
Yeah I wonder if there was a reason the communists were fighting both the nazis and 'social democrats,' and had to spend more time fighting the larger group that was openly funding the nazis.
The social democrats were funding the Nazis? Suuuure, buddy.
Just a reminder that communists weren't the ones to appoint nazis to power; anti communists were. The ones that thought violence is never the answer and we should just vote harder if we don't want fascists in power.
And everytime those people get power fascists get power shortly after. Maybe it's not financially funding, but anti'tankies' are responsible for every instance of fascism taking power. Because equality and equity scares you people.
username does not check out
Sorry, niceness does not extend to fascists or their enablers due to recent world events. To resubscribe, stop being a cunt.
Oooh, wrong answer. Sorry.
Projecting much?
Liberals have been the only people in world history to choose fascism over any form of communism, since fascism doesn't threaten their world view.
This includes the dem party in the US who picked clinton, biden, and harris, three far right shit stains, instead of anyone slightly centrist or left wing.
Not that the distinction bears much value making: They funded the proto-Nazis.
In the time period in question (After WW1, Wiemar Germany) the social democrats were in direct coalition with right wing paramilitaries.
Those paramilitaries did some extrajudicial killings and some just so happened to form things like the S.A. and the Nazi party. (And tried to overthrow the social democrats government a number of times by military coup.) Erich Ludendorff is a notable figure to this period.
But by the time the proto-Nazis had murdered themselves and others enough to become the Nazis, no, the social democrats were no longer in alliance, but mostly after the second coup attempt.
Which German president appointed Hitler as chancellor? Which "leftist" political parties did and did not endorse that president?
Fuck the tankies, they are irrelevant.
How so? I doubt they played a big part in the election.
Am I missing something?
I'd imagine you're missing lots.
Yeah, you sure seem to be
Well gee thanks, you sure informed me then.
👍
MAGA deflects all introspection. This ability allows them to justify all their actions.
Tankies are Republicans and fascist sympathizers
If you support authoritarians you aren't a communist
Its more like extremely corrupt and 1937 germany but yeah i still want extemely corruotnover the other option.
Yes, and it wouldn't have fucking mattered.
The 2024 us presidential election will have fierce debates for years to come.
This thread is an amazing honeypot for any instance admins looking for a well organized list of accounts to ban.
this is one of the biggest problems on the left, granted these people generally do bitch about trump and his admin.
The problem is that they bitch about everyone, short of lenin literally rising from the dead, nobody would ever sate their hunger for bloodlust, they only wish to see the world burn so they can be angry about it.
OFC this one is a bit more specific to the commie left, but this is also generally true amongst the left as well, we're too busy bitching about stupid shit, to actually do anything productive most of the time.
Unsurprisingly the tankies are silent on Orban refusing to follow international law by not having Netanyahu arrested for committing genocide.