this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026
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TankieJerk
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PugJesus, at a time when billionaires are destroying the planet and creating fascism - why do you spend so much energy on this?
Multiple reasons.
First and foremost, I'm not under the delusion that this is some form of serious praxis. While it may have some incredibly minor positive effect, this is me doing shit in my hobby time.
"Once a day I make a post scavenging some ancient anti-tankie meme made a decade ago on another site" is hardly a great expenditure of time or energy. Five minutes, and that's if I have to search extra hard.
A nonzero amount of those billionaires and fascists continue to use red paint over their dictatorships, and continue to have their boots licked by the same people who fall for all the tankie tropes mocked in this comm.
We adjust our behaviors to the communities we run in - on the Fediverse, there are few brown fash, but a significant number of red fash - including three major instances. I post in political memes when I find an exceptional anti-brown fash meme, but for the most part it would be pouring a cup of salt water into the ocean - everyone on here is mostly on the side of "Fuck blackshirts and brownshirts".
It may not be the most important praxis. But it's absolutely important to keep repeating it. Like you say, here "fuck trump/Republicans" is a completely milquetoast, cookie cutter, boilerplate, uncontroversial statement. But there's no shortage of empty headed campist, that think it's okay when it's their team. The image may only depict red fash, but the language is broad and inclusive enough for them all. And if it's important enough, someone can add in depictions of Trump Musk and Thiel. It will still be as true.
Because some of these billionaires and fascists are also pretending to be socialists and communists.
like?
Xi Jinping springs to mind.
why not put him in the picture then?
Because it's not my picture. I didn't make it. In fact, I think this may have actually even predated Xi's consolidation of power in the mid-2010s.
Because the emphasis is that dictators are bastards, rather than focusing on the latest authoritarian. All three dictators presented are bastards who nonetheless still have people, even self-proclaimed leftists, who bootlick for them.
Because space is limited in all forms of communication. "Brevity is the essence of wit" - every dictator whose picture we know could've been included there, but that would not have communicated the message as clearly - that ALL dictators are bastards. Even the ones with thin coats of red paint.
The question was why spend 'so much time' on agitating against authoritarian pseudoleftists when there are fascists and billionaires around, and the response by rockerface was that authoritarian pseudoleftists still exist amongst the fascists and billionaires. The presentation of Xi Jinping is an example of a modern authoritarian pseudoleftist, but the example of Xi Jinping is only to prove the point that authoritarian pseudoleftists are not a negligible problem, even with the fucking other fascists and billionaires causing issues.
I like how you come with well thought out and honest responses.
Because these billionaires and oligarchs are trying to create or have created an authoritarian system in order to consolidate and increase their power. Anyone who thinks that replacing the current flavour of authoritarianism with a different one will achieve anything positive is seriously deluded.