this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2026
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Tankies are so weird. I’m sure some of them are true believers, but I get the feeling most of them just want to watch the western world burn and kinda don’t care how it happens.
Well, and then there’s the fact that posts like this always get swarmed by users from .ml and other similar instances (around the time that the eastern hemisphere wakes up) with the message “both sides bad”
Tankies are weird because it's mostly genuinely good ideas of justice and fairness tied to a century old wagon full of some of the worst ideas the world has ever seen. Eventually they get consumed by the bad actor propaganda because of this.
Socialism already had a very successful rebrand but being happy with your house and EV with a social safety net in northern europe it's just too boring for them. Not enough tanks and iconography I guess.
And if you aren't their specific brand of tank you can burn too.
It seems like a lot of them honestly think that if a liar says something, it must be a lie. They realized that our government lies, and immediately flipped everything they thought they knew to the opposite of what they thought it was.
"The US, which suppresses its own citizens, said that Russia, China, and North Korea suppress their own citizens? That must mean they're awesome! Ignore personal accounts from people who live or escaped from there, if the US says it's bad, it must be good, no question!"
Like, yeah, both sides are bad. Suppressing your citizens is bad. We need to be rising up as citizens across the world to take the power back from all dictatorial governments everywhere, not arguing about which one is the worst as if that makes the others better.
I'm sure there's also a population of tankies that don't understand truly what they are saying and are just vaguely repeating talking points from their favorite podcaster/streamer.
It would certainly explain why every argument with a tankie fits into 1 of about 6 of the same arguments with slightly different flavor.
That's definitely the case with my ex. He used to parrot the "Russia had to invade Ukraine because NATO! It was self defence!" and I'm pretty sure he was just parroting whatever he heard on Joe Rogan and the other far right rabbit holes that led him to.
Well at least he's your ex.
I don't think you know what a tankie is.
Wayyyyyy too many young-adults tune into Hasan and believe he makes sense as he panders to his twitch chat for profit. I'm more and more convinced that this is Russo/China infiltration attempting to wedge-drive the left and distort reality. There are people on here who will complain about US imperialism on the daily but then turn a complete blind eye to Chinese or Russian atrocities conveniently. One can only conclude they're spreading the kool-aid, or chugging it.
I fee like some of them are neurodivergent and don't realise it. I was listening to an interview of a former neo-Nazi and he mentioned many of those who get sucked in by the far-right are very likely to be undiagnosed autistic. I imagine the same happening with the far-left tankie circles, given the childish statements they constantly make and the perpetual online presence.
This is not an attack on neurodivergent folks by the way, and sorry if my comment sounds like I rub anyone the wrong way, but it is quite common for any extremist movements to try to recruit vulnerable people in some capacity, either those who are emotionally or mentally vulnerable, or both.
The thing about us neurodivergent people is that we’re people, which means we’re as vulnerable as any other group. Some might be more vulnerable than non-neurodivergent individuals others might be less. There is a broad spectrum of neurodivergence. I happen to be one of the less vulnerable. My autism predisposed me to questioning and trying to truly understand what I hear and why.
Your comment did rub me the wrong way because to say that we neurodivergent folk are particularly vulnerable to these sorts of things (extremism) is belittling. I know you tried to mean well but that is simply what it is. We are a broad spectrum of people. Same as you.
Butwhatabout <insert something shitty the US has done that nobody has condoned or even mentioned during the current discussion about China while completely ignoring the discussion about things China is doing>? You don't seem to have any problem with that, huh?
"Both sides bad" is a litmus test. If someone says it unironically it lets me know what IQ range they fall within.
I'm with them on the US at least, it has had way too much power to just trample anyone it feels like. Obviously not worth all the effects from what Trump has done but...
I struggle to understand how the collapse of the United States would do anything but make life worse for literally everyone on the planet for decades if not longer.
You want to make things better? Change the system from within slowly. You want to accidentally make things much much worse? Burn a system down and watch what emerges be horrible beyond what you could imagine.
Why would it automatically be "horrible beyond what you could imagine"? I have watched the US murder thousands of people through illegal wars, poison the entire planet, and now for years the US has supported an open genocide in Gaza, not to mention previous genocidal regimes propped up by the US.
The things I have seen are already literally more horrible than I could have imagined. I wouldn't imagine they would send a Tomahawk missile into a crowded elementary school, and especially wouldn't imagine they would hit it two more times, ensuring nearly every young girl in a small town was killed. I wouldn't have imagined these things years ago except maybe from a country like Nazi Germany. But I've seen it, and there is ample evidence, and we know that there is more that they do in the shadows that we might never know. Tell me why we shouldn't stop it as quickly as possible? What would you say to the parents of these children? People have been pushing for change slowly and steadily for the entire history of the US and we are still a bloodthirsty, heartless monster, imprisoning more people than have ever been held in history.
Millions.Take Vietnam and the completely illegal bombing of Cambodia and Laos alone, and you're already at millions.
When was the last time a system remotely this bad was actually redeemed slowly? The Mongols were defeated by disease, storms, and violence; the Nazis were defeated by extreme violence; the Japanese Empire was defeated by extreme violence; the French monarchy and Napoleon were defeated by extreme violence; the Russian monarchy was defeated by extreme violence.
Things get worse before they get better with a revolution, but they can get better. That isn't to say that we should decline to reduce harm inside the current system, but it seems naive to expect the current system to stop being terrible. Harm reduction is a temporary measure.
"Tear it all down" is for weak minded imbeciles who get frustrated trying to confront issues and think of practical resolutions.
I find "tear it all down" people hilarious. Like... yea, ok, we'll tear it all down. And who's gonna rebuild after? You and your keyboard?
I sort of agree with you but the chance for that is over. I can't come up with a single way to change anything slowly at this point. We've had 46 years of pillaging the working class and now we're about to get nuked by an illegal IPO during the biggest bubble we've ever seen. Please help me understand how we'll have the option to change anything once Palantir rolls out the robot dogs next year.