TERF (trans exclusive radical feminists) are basically transphobes who say "trans people are bad for women rights".
Tankies are a bit more vague in usage. But basically these are self proclaimed socialists who are actually more into authoritarian leaders. They will appreciate Stalin for everything he did and defend North Korea's political system. Sometimes even praise China and Russia for being "anti-imperialist". So they have all the social backwards ideas, even more so than TERFS because why would they be feminists.
Yes, Russia is being extremely anti-imperialist in Ukraine, and it's also China's anti-imperialism that's threatening Taiwan. Tankies just hate the west, they don't have principles.
To be more precise it is anti-US-imperialism and hegemony, which itself is a fine sentiment but when you're willing to let any right wing dictator lead that fight you've really lost any credibility as a leftist.
I would argue that Russia was imperialist during the tsar empire, the Soviet union and today. It just never stopped exploiting their colonies (at least everything east of the Ural are colonies inhabited by indigenous communities not recognized in their fight for freedom) and the Soviet union smashed all the attempts to create a socialist community that was beyond bolshevism like the black army in Ukraine or the anarchosyndicalists in Spain. As a leftist myself I don't see any reason to have solitary with Soviets and people who refere positively to them.
yeah, makes sense, but exactly like you said, credibility is important. being anti-imperialist in general with a focus on us imperialism is very different from being against only american imperialism while actively supporting the imperialism of other countries such as russia or china
Tankies just hate the west, they don't have principles.
They do have a principle: "The cruelty is the point". This is usually used for far-right groups, who use conservatism as an excuse to hurt people, but it applies just as well to those who use anti-US sentiment to hurt people.
Tankies are a derogatory term for any Communist government that has a large military force that they use. Basically, if any Communist country uses it's military power, they're tankies. It's western propaganda to make every Communist nation look evil. It started with the Tiananmen Square riots and the picture of the guy standing in front of the tanks leaving the square the day before the actual fighting happened. It's also used to pretend that countries like North Korea or China are somehow more violent and authoritarian than the US.
Tankies are generally anti-west authies that root for self-proclaimed "communist" systems like China (which is state capitalist) or Russia (which is an oligopoly, the exact thing late stage capitalism devolves into). They generally spew the exact authoritarian and bigoted bullshit as the alt-right but do it under a different flag that historically opposed nazis, which is why they constantly claim that they're somehow completely different and even more, "opposite" to nazis. Lemmy unfortunately has an infestation of them because the developers are tankies, which often shows on lemmy.ml (the instance said devs run).
Like most reactionaries, tankies have no principles either, just a group they hate and they will twist their ideology as much as it takes to get you that end result. For tankies, that group is "the west". They will coat their bullshit in opposition of the ultra-rich (which most of us can agree on) but make no mistake, as long as you live in a western nation they want you gone, or at best subjugated. This is currently the most apparent in their support of Russia's genocidal war against Ukraine, because it props up a power that they perceive as "friendly" to them, but you might also catch them supporting the Uighur genocide and respond with extreme amounts of whataboutism every time such a take is brought up, essentially detracting from any problem in world powers they align with with counter-accusations of "the west".
This mindset blinds you to the ideology though. It blinds you to the idea of an economy controlled by the working class. Sometimes you need to set your feelings and opinions aside and examine history and economics by their material conditions.
There are many requirements to having an economy and society controlled directly by the working class. You need enough infrastructure, resources, and technology to support a truly democratic country with a totally socialist economy. Prior to the revolution, Russia was a mess. There were regular famines and over 90% illiteracy. Lenin's plan was to lift the people out of poverty, develop infrastructure, educate everyone, and lay a foundation for a country controlled by the working class. Even before Lenin died, he was ceding power to the worker's councils. Then he died and a huge power grab ensued. A lot of murdering and assassination occurred within the government and Stalin won the killing game. Then he took a very isolationist viewpoint. Instead of the international proletariat, he wanted to shut Russia off from the world. He took power away from the worker's councils to help build a mighty superpower to be threatened by no one. It worked out because they defeated the Nazis, but it still took power away from the people none the less.
My point is that every country that's had a Communist revolution, started under some tyrannical Monarch in which living and working conditions were unbearable. The people cede power to the State to develop the country and rapidly improve living and working conditions. Then the state fails to cede power back to the people once economic development has reached decent conditions. China is at that point right now. They've rapidly developed the country enough that it is now time to cede power back. Establish a direct democratic government and socialist economy, or face internal collapse like all the others.
The US needs money for funding the military industrial complex. They need fear mongering to sell weapons. They need wars to sell weapons. They need propaganda to sell weapons. Any support of Russia is mostly due to a portion of leftists being confused by their anti US imperialism and rooting for whoever the other team is. There's also plenty of evidence supporting both sides of the war and it may just be two superpowers playing with Ukrainian lives for money.
Because anarchists want anarchy. Often after revolutions, anarchists get upset at the existence of government and threaten to destabilize the new government.
Origin of the term didn't originate with China and the Tiananmen square massacre...
From wiki:
The term "tankie" was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defense of the Soviet use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring uprising, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.
Shit, I forgot about that. Khrushchev era Soviet Union isn't my strong point for history. It's commonly used these days in reference to China but I forgot it's older than that. My bad.
It actually started with British Marxist-Leninists who criticized the USSR's use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and the communists who defended the USSR's imperialism were called tankies.
It started as a way to call out people who call themselves communists but nonetheless engage in or defend imperialism, and to this day that remains the meaning of the word. There are some liberals out there who use the word against all leftists, as a way to imply that leftism is inherently authoritarian. But that is not largely how it is used online, and it's definitely not how OP was using it.