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I'm curious what folks here think about tankies.
I remember seeing a twitter thread during the onset of the Ukraine war explaining why Russia and China growing powerful even to the point of imperialism is vital to combat western imperialism, "someone has to do it". Whether one agrees that Russia has been constantly provoked by NATO or not, its difficult to spin Russian actions as "anti-imperialist". Similarly, China's land and water disputes with its neighbours. It appears both these countries have become a sort of canvas to project their ideologies. They often call western conservatives "far right" and often attack their criticisms of feminism. But how do they explain China's own censorship of feminist activism, the fact that independent labour unions are illegal, the push for pro-natalism, the push for masculinity training, etc.? I've seen many articles countering the stories about Uyghurs, but not much on the above. What really makes the "tankie ideology" attractive? I can fully understand and even sympathise with their gripes over western imperialism and even Israel to an extent, but I don't get the narratives that its all the neoliberals and the "far right" against China, essentially projecting the whole issue as a new cold war of ideologies between neoliberalism and communism.
This hilarious Noahopinion essay says that modern Tankies are about 2000 people on Twitter who get more attention than they deserve because they are so good at trolling other prominent left-Twitter factions.
I don't know about the 2000 Twitter trolls theory, but I agree with Noah that the root cause is anti-Americanism taken to the level where the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I think the same applies to the increasingly numerous "right-Tankies" (such as the one who took over the CPAC twitter account), who see the American government and American-led alliance system as part of the woke enemy. I am not sure what you call right-wingers who express Tankie-like sentiments - Quisling seems unfairly harsh, although this really is the kind of sentiment that enabled people like Quisling and Petain in WW2.
As a white nationalist and traditionalist who is more likely to undermine the ethnic homogeneity of my country and the traditions of my people, the Chinese, Putin or the people at Davos? Why would I feel loyalty to the same people who push critical race theory, want to deconstruct my culture and openly push migrants into my country while having killed millions of people in wars in the middle east? I am not a traitor when I support China since the group I would supposedly be betraying are people who want me banned off the internet, fired from my job and who want to force my future children to go to woke schools. China isn't my friend but I don't see how they or Iran are hostile to me.
Wouldn’t you be worried about your ethnic group being subordinate to the one that wins the power contest?
The risk of China steamrolling through Western Europe is exceedingly low, and I live in a city that is a quarter muslim far away from Russia. The muslim population has a higher birthrate than the natives and brings in more of their relatives through migration. Russia isn't going to steamroll Europe and occupy us. If we are going to be taken by foreigners, those foreigners will be let in by the same people who blasted the migrant's homelands through wars and then wanted to take the refugees.
Even if worse comes to worst almost all parts of Europe have been occupied at some point and recovered. Finland is finish even though it was occupied for 800 years. Poland is fairly polish, most of the Balkan retains its culture despite the various ethnic groups seldomly having a country of their own. If Russia through some miracle managed to take western Europe they wouldn't be able to hold it and after a while it would go down in history as one of many wars in Europe that ultimately didn't destroy it.
If we end up like the Greeks in Turkey or the Greeks in Lebanon, there is no recovering.
Or like the Germans in Königsberg? Russia is one of the worst offenders in this respect.
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