Chapotraphouse

I knew a guy who was doing this in the early 2000s. I knew another apolitical non-commie who was interested in learning Chinese because he thought it would improve his long term employment prospects. Why? China's trajectory was known at the time! And the US's trajectory was also known! It was a lot harder for a believer to produce hard evidence, and probably a much much intellectually risky thing to believe back then. But it's now 20 years later, that's 20 years more trajectory everybody can see, plus a massive internet pipeline spewing hard evidence everywhere.

In the US, you can't look anywhere outside without seeing widespread decay and greed. You can't look outside of the US without seeing high speed rail everywhere.

I guess you could say, a tankie is anyone who showed up too early to the party.