This is something I always get in arguments about, whenever I use the word tankie hexbear and grad users argue that its just a term for socialists.
I’ve always just used it to referr to authoritarian communists, i.e, people who unironically support modern russia, and/or oppose ukraine, and think nothing happened to the uyghurs.
Fascists painted red. Issues like Uyghur genocide and support or neutrality on the imperialist invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and subsequent ethnic cleansing, are often clear indicators of tankieism; but really the root is tribalism without any deeper cause, principles, or thought process. Many are American exceptionalists who insist everything revolves around US policy.
Those who claim that ‘tankie’ just means ‘socialists’ and everyone who uses it is a bourgeois puppet or useful idiot are often the same kinds of people who will say things like “The Hungarian Revolution of 1956, led by workers and demanding a democratic and socialist government of the people, was counterrevolutionary fascism and they deserved to be crushed by Soviet tanks”
Which is, fittingly, where the term comes from to begin with
Yeah, I get a lot of arguments shot down by hexbear users and grad users because they take issue with the term. After I explain my stance, they say that not everyone has the same level of nuance when it comes to the term.