this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
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Well, at least it saves us a lot of time when you skip straight to the name-calling phase.
You would think so!
You guys are so boring and your faux-highmindedness falls flat when none of you ever stop calling communists "tankies"
While not being entirely the same
This reeks of "I'm not calling all Black/Asian/Muslim people Slur/Pejorative just those who don't fit what I think the good ones should look like" rightwing nonsense.
But it's not, you see, because tankies call themselves tankies, and it's a voluntary political designation besides.
Is calling fundamentalists "fundies" a slur?
Is calling Republicans "elephants" a slur? Democratic "donkeys" a slur?
It reeks of it only because they are using single words to describe a multi-layered something for the sake of brevity. It's a pronoun. You are against pronouns.
Tankies call ourselves as such because we have 3 options, when the pejorative is flung at us:
Attack the legitimacy of the pejorative itself. For example, point out that it really only means "someone who supports existing socialist states" at a consistent level.
Own the term. By accepting the pejorative, you acknowledge that the line of division between the tankie and the one accusing the other of being a tankie is the fact that the accuser views the tankie as unjustifiably supporting socialist states, while the tankie believed their support to be justified, usually due to a difference in perspective, historiography, and understanding. This forces the conversation forward, to discussions of existing socialism, and what tankies actually support.
Accept that the pejorative exists, but vehemently deny that it applies to you.
Only 1 and 2 actually have a leg to stand on, and present a path forward. The reason we tankies accept the pejorative isn't because the liberal idea of a tankie is a real thing, but because the liberals correctly identify communists as belonging to a coherent group that falls under the same category. This doesn't mean it isn't a pejorative and a strawman, it's like "feminazi" back when that term was popular, only for socialism instead of feminism.
Like "feminazi," tankie is a term used to dismiss people as holding unreasonable views. It's by definition a pejorative and strawman, just like "feminazi."
And black people call themselves the N-word does that mean you get to call them it?
No it's a pejorative.
You don't know what any of those words mean.