Tankies don’t hate Trump enough to vote for Biden.
I consider myself a socialist (albeit, not a tankie, since I don’t agree with mass centralization of power, since that would inevitably lead to corruption). I like Prof. Wolff’s idea of forcing all companies to be worker-owned cooperatives, which will help to take away power from the owner class, who currently has control over the government via donations, paid lobbyists, super PACs, etc.
I hate Biden with a passion. I think he’s a neoliberal corporatist warmonger, and he’s very, VERY far from my ideal candidate. I’d even go so far as to say I hate him as a candidate. I’m still voting for him though for a few reasons, though.
-
We have a FPTP voting system, which leads to only having two parties to choose from, as George Washington warned against.
-
The Supreme Court is probably going to have some vacancies soon. We’ve seen how Trump’s appointees turned out. Biden vowed to appoint progressives to the SCOTUS.
-
Biden has been the most pro-labor, pro-union president we’ve had in a very long time, even if he still isn’t perfect on that front.
-
Lina Kahn is sweet (current head of the FTC), and I want her to remain the head for the forseeable future.
-
I think Trump being elected is going to lead the country into literal fascism. I didn’t think his first term was going to, and I took him to be a joke, but then January 6th happened. Also Trump is worse on basically every domestic and foreign policy compared to Biden. Project 2025 is all I really need to say when it comes to Trump’s policies.
I think people who shame voters are causing people to want to be less involved in politics, rather than voting for the non-fascist. As Hillary Clinton showed us in 2016, voter shaming is actively harmful and helps the other side win. There was absolutely no reason that Trump should have won in 2016, except Clinton was so full of herself, and didn’t care to listen to anyone who was to the left of her, especially after she helped rig the DNC primary against Bernie (as the John Podesta email leaks have shown). Hillary also helped Trump win the RNC primary in 2016 (see: the Pied Piper strategy), since she incorrectly thought that Trump was the easiest candidate to beat.
The DNC continued to rig every primary against the progressive candidate after that (against Bernie in 2020 by forcing all the other neoliberal candidates to drop out prior to Super Tuesday to prevent splitting the vote against Biden, and against Williamson in 2024 by essentially not even having a primary, even though they technically did), and they wonder why people hate them.
I don’t hold out much hope for the US to be a prosperous nation for anyone but the wealthiest class anytime soon. I genuinely believe that the wealthy would rather have fascism over any kind of socialism, because fascism will at least keep them in power.
But still, I’m going to hold my nose and throw up a little in my mouth as I cast my vote for Biden this coming election, because the only other option is literal fascism.
Look at that! An adult!
In before “bruh, we already have literal fascism”!
My app failed to load any of the replies, which probably means I blocked all of them lmao.
The US does support international genocide, and Capitalism is declining, but it hasn’t quite declined within the US for fascism to become possible, otherwise Jan 6 would’ve been met with massive popular support.
The conditions for fascism are approaching under Biden still, so he isn’t really an “anti-fascist” candidate, but Trump does represent support for far more reactionary views.
The US does support international genocide, and Capitalism is declining
Neither of those are mutually exclusive; capitalism is actually quite friendly to fascism and many definitively non-fascist states stand idly by or conveniently profit while genocides happen.
I understand, I was pointing out that voting for Biden is voting for a slow descent rather than rapid into fascism.
Biden vowed to appoint progressives to the SCOTUS.
While his appointees would be better than more Trump nutcases, people seem to be making way too much of Biden’s words on this. His words from the piece I saw the other day were this: “The next president, they’re going to be able to appoint a couple justices, and I’ll be damned — if in fact we’re able to change some of the justices when they retire and put in really progressive judges like we’ve always had, tell me that won’t change your life.”
Unless there’s another quote I missed, that’s not a vow, it’s just normal campaign stump speech talk.
Most reasoned response I’ve read on this sub. Thanks!
I like Prof. Wolff’s idea of forcing all companies to be worker-owned cooperatives
How would that work in the real world? Like if I work somewhere there’s 100 employees, I’d have a 1% share of the company. So I’d be getting 1% of the profits. I work really hard and now the company is making a lot of profit and so I’m making a lot of money because my share in the company. That’s cool. But we’re doing so well we kind of need to expand. So we need to hire 50 new employees. Do those new employees get an equal share as me? So now I only get 0.75% share of the profit after spending a decade working on developing an awesome product and the person hired yesterday now gets the exact same 0.75% share? Do new employees have to take out a loan to buy a share to be employed? Or do we just give away the shares which will lessen the value of of my share for no compensation. Maybe we shouldn’t hire anyone new, my retirement plan involves my share in the company not losing value.
If I leave the company do I sell my share of the company? To who? The other employees? Do they pool together their money to do a buy-back? What about that person just hired doesn’t have the money to buyback the share of someone leaving the company? Are they forced to take out a loan?
It feels like an idea that sounds nice until you consider the details of how it would actually work in real life. But I guess that’s just socialism in general I guess.
Worker owned coops are already a thing in many parts of the world, so examples in the real world can already be used as models. It’s not just a theoretical, “on paper” idea that has never been implemented before.
Being worker-owned does not necessarilly mean that everyone gets paid equally. What it means is that there is a democracy in the workplace. For example, imagine if your manager was elected by you and your coworkers instead of your manager deciding whether or not you get to work at your job. Also imagine if you were able to vote on wage increases for you and your coworkers (of course, taking company profits into account. Wages aren’t going to appear out of thin air) based on the job position. Generally speaking, people are going to vote for higher wages for people who have a heavier workload/more responsibilities. Currently in non-worker-owned, publicly traded companies, wages are indirectly decided by a board of directors, who then elect the chief officers, and ultimately, who make the decisions for the company.
It feels like an idea that sounds nice until you consider the details of how it would actually work in real life. But I guess that’s just socialism in general I guess.
Richard Wolff is a doctor and professor in economics and is an economic historian. He knows what he’s talking about. I’d recommend watching one of his talks on his version of socialism, which you can find on YouTube. Here is one of his talks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1WUKahMm1s
OR, imagine in your “Democratic” work environment, sentiment eventually split into 50/50 over which manager to vote for and one manager had been bought and paid for by a rival business to undermine your co-op business in the same space, but but his followers were racist and anti-abortion and anti lgbt and cult like and threatened violence to the other side?
All roads lead to some percentage of authoritarianism. Sorry, but there is no way socialism works. Or really any single system yet devised by man.
Humans gonna human.
No matter the system, there will always be born some greedy psychopath with the intelligence to attempt to get power, and the type of people that would follow. People need to learn to live with a balance of each ideology mixed.You completely made up this scenario. Not every vote is 50/50, because not every voting system is first past the post. Also, in a system where all companies are worker-owned coops, you have the very real option of just changing jobs and/or reporting your manager if they are acting unethically; there is also the option of just voting to oust that manager and hold a new election for a new manager. In this system, there is no owner class to influence the government to weaken labor protections like there is under capitalism.
All roads lead to some percentage of authoritarianism.
Source?
Sorry, but there is no way socialism works.
So how has it been working all over the globe? Again, worker-owned coops already exist. The Mondragon corporation in Spain is one of the largest companies in that country, and is a worker-owned coop. There are many examples in the US as well, like Ocean Spray. Just because you don’t believe something works doesn’t change reality.
No matter the system, there will always be born some greedy psychopath with the intelligence to attempt to get power, and the type of people that would follow.
Which is why people work together to create a system that makes getting that kind of power impossible, which is the entire point of socialism (especially 21st century socialism as described by Wolff). If you just give up, then the greedy psychopaths win by default. The phrase Marx used is “seize the means of production” and not “just accept that greed exists and let the owner class continue to own the means of production.”
People need to learn to live with a balance of each ideology mixed.
Why? So the owner class can continue to have control over our society and continue to push our government towards fascism? No, thank you. Just because you have given up doesn’t mean everyone else should.
People need to learn to live with a balance of each ideology mixed.
Ans how would this system avoid people being greedy?
All the things you worried about really do happen, it’s just that currently they’re done in the interests of wealthy investors instead of in the interests of the employees.
Good analysis. But I have to disagree on number 5. IMO, Trump and his cadre won’t be able to do a facist takeover, for precisely the reason you listed - Jan 6. That was their moment, the time for all the shittalkers to get off social media and do something, the high water mark. Aaaand what did they accomplish? They freaked out a bunch of Congresspeople, put some cops in the hospital, did some light property damage, and went home. Promptly leading to, if not a crackdown, than an investigation of everyone involved.
I dunno man, I don’t see any future that involves them doing anything more than some scattered violence against ‘woke’ targets, which will only hurt them in the long run due to the reactions against it. There just…aren’t enough of them to do anything.
Completely my opinion, of course.
I wouldn’t entirely discount them. January 6th showed that Trump could rile up enough support to literally get a crowd of a few thousand to enter into open treason on his behalf. If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised that the convictions stemming from it thus far have further radicalized some of those who held back into believing they’re legitimately at risk of persecution, leaving them more likely to take such extreme actions in the future. While I don’t think Trump himself could pull it off, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if more competent individuals on the far right took note of this and will do their best to channel the passion and loyalty Trump inspires in his supporters towards much more effective and dangerous action if he gets another shot.
-
Neither do the socialists.
Am socialist. Voting for the only non-fascist in our corrupt, two-party, FPTP system is a no-brainer… even if they are neoliberal scum.
As a Russian bot /tankie/woke/whatever for the next pejorative is: I’m planning on voting for Biden because Putin told me to.
IDK which tankies you are seeing, but the ones on Lemmy are Russian trolls who very clearly favor Donald Trump
Edit - lmao right on cue
I’m talking about the useful idiots who sincerely believe what the trolls are feeding them.
The tankies I see on Lemmy are Zionist trolls who deny Genocide and favor Joe Biden.
You think “tankies” support Biden?
That’s certainly a unique take.
Last time I checked Tankie Joe said israel has not committee any war crimes and certainly isn’t committing Genocide.
That is literally not what tankie means.
What do you believe it means?
Only Commies that deny Genocide are Tankies?
Well, yeah. Folks that fell for China’s propaganda specifically.
The general usage refers to people who are so brainwashed that they will ardently deny and even defend massive crimes against humanity committed by their government. In the case of China, deniers of Tienanmen or the Uyghur Genocide would apply. In the case of America anyone that denies israel is committing Genocide applies.
And the glorious leader supporting that Genocide is none other than Genocide Joe Biden.
Except Trump is the one who wants to “finish the problem”, referring to Palestinians. He is also the one, who moved the US embassy to Jerusalem during his presidency, and he’s a good friend of Netanyahu the fascist. That’s why Netanyahu clearly favors Trump and his fascist Republicans.
Those would be liberals. Tankies deny genocide as long as China and Russia are doing it, and hate Joe Biden.
(I believe the joke was pointing to liberals supporting a fascist genocide vis-à-vis netanyahu, which is an accusation typically directed at ‘tankies’)
No one is accusing tankies of supporting Netanyahu…am I misunderstanding you here?
Isn’t the chief characteristic of a ‘tankie’ their tacit support of violent authoritarian regimes?
Only violent authoritarian regimes that are opposed to America, in the typical sense of the word.
Ah, I see it now thanks
Not sure about the Biden part, but otherwise that tracks quite well actually. Tankies do like to make apologies for Xi and the CCP and deny the Uighur Genocide.
This strongly suggests that Zionists are Tankies in fact, which I don’t think either group would like to recognize.
I don’t think any of the tankies I’ve seen on this site have been Zionists – they usually use Israel as an example of Western imperialism actually. I’d find it kind of weird for them to be Zionists, since that part of the Middle East has a LOT of socialism – the PLO is made up of mostly socialist & social-democratic entities (led by the left-leaning Fatah party), and is the “legitimate” Palestinian West Bank government, although they’re the opposition coalition in the territory’s legislature, which is dominated by Hamas since the country’s last election in 2006 (the next election was supposed to happen in 2021, but it was and still is postponed by Hamas due to Israel continuously blocking Jerusalem’s Arab residents from voting; the recent genocide has seen a sharp drop in Fatah’s popularity since they primarily advocated for peaceful means of resolving the conflict).
Tankies ARE definitely genocide deniers in another sense though (Uyghurs) so it’s not much better. I remember a lemmy.ml comment I posted getting me banned from the site, since it was maps of countries’ foreign investment amounts from China, countries’ economic reliances on China, and countries that voted against recognizing the Uyghur genocide (a China-enjoying commenter was arguing that predominantly muslim countries’ governments didn’t vote for condemning the Uyghur genocide in the UN, therefore it’s unreasonable to say that there is one; of course, the governments in question were almost all relatively poor/impoverished/struggling/corrupt countries heavily funded by China that also relied a lot upon trade with China, which would suffer greatly from making diplomatic moves against the CCP – it also aligns relatively well with countries that don’t have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, of course).
The tankies actually don’t like socialism unless it has “Chinese characteristics” (billionaires, authoritarianism, etc).
Yeah I haven’t actually spotted Zionist tankies ever.
Though it would make sense for socialists to really hate Hamas given that it’s a fascist organization that massacred people living in Kibbutz’s which are socialist communes.
But tankies don’t really care for socialism, I don’t think most of them even know what it is. Tankies are generally simple minded people that like the aesthetic of Che Guevara t-shirts, and red flags with yellow symbols on them. It’s about being rebellious against whatever they feel mommy and daddy like. They’re generally in university which means mommy and daddy are well off and so socialism feels like something they wouldn’t approve of, so they throw on a Che Guevara t-shirt and wave around whichever red flag they think looks the coolest.
So the US is always the bad guy, any allies of of the US are also bad guys, and therefore any adversary of the US or it’s allies must be the good guys. Doesn’t matter how horrible an enemy of the US is, they will look the other way so they continue to subscribe to this simplistic fantasy world view. At least until they finish university and become the asshole bosses of the working class.
Lol!
Just to taunt: I have a real toilet.
Idk what you think this means but it seems racist
I’m implying the poor russians who play tankies here on lemmy doesn’t have a real toilet.
Gotta shoehorn really hard to make that racist lol
Uh huh.
And why wouldn’t they have a real toilet?
This account clear of Bucha denial? Or can I go deep enough?
ROFL… find me one person here that’s denying genocide.
Well, the typical tankie seems to deny plenty of genocides, but the ongoing Palestine genocide might not be one of them.
political literacy has gotta be at an all time low huh
We are on Lemmy.world, after all.
this is true
Yes, liberals and tankies. The two other political ideological sides besides republicans.
Where progressives
Also here but they pretend we don’t exist.
Trick question. Anyone to the right of tankies but left of conservatives is a liberal, as far as tankies are concerned.
Liberals are often to the left of tankies.
Often? They are “to the left of” by definition… but only relatively.
Liberals are center-right while tankies are extreme right (though they love to cosplay leftists by arguing that THEIR fascism is “benevolent”).
So neither is on the left at all.
“To the left of” is relative. Progressive liberals are left of conservative liberals as well as most if not all tankies. (it depends on how you metricize all the disparate positions into a single dimension) there are probably some conservative liberals that are to the right of most tankies, but again it depends on your metricizing parameters.
I’m a Libertarian Socialist who gets along with Anarchists most of the time. I’m arguably to the right of them, but that doesn’t make me right-wing.
You’re spot on about the relativity, but there is an objective spectrum as well.
Right is about consolidating power; Left is about ensuring it is shared.
The extreme right is authoritarian. Any support for (or tolerance of) the consolidation of power and/or wealth is rightist.
The extreme left is egalitarian. Support for systems of shared power and/or wealth (and mechanisms for prevention of hoarding or entrenchment of either) is leftist.
So while you are correct about the relative positions to one another, it’s important to point out that, objectively, neither liberals nor tankies are leftist in any way, shape, or form.
Also, the spectrum isn’t a straight line, but a complex web. For example, just consider the “extremes”…
Extreme right power structures include monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorship, feudalism, etc. Because the nature of rightism is consolidation, those structures tend to look similar.
“Extreme” left power structures include direct democracy, communism (stateless), anarchism (which itself includes many flavors and definitions), and the like.
Since tankies openly advocate for consolidation of power, they are objectively far-right. Liberals will tolerate (sometimes even champion) the consolidation of wealth & power even if it destroys liberalism… because to them the means is more important the ends; ergo, they are slight right.
Humans being humans, there will always be “rightward pressure” on any social construct. Leftists need to recognize this and ensure than any leftist progress can withstand such pressure and avoid rightward drift. This is why liberals are so often despised by leftists… liberals seem leftist only to those so far on the right that they can’t see over the metaphorical moderate/centrist horizon. Likewise, tankies seem leftist to the same at first glance, because they advocate for more benevolent use of totalitarianism… but each ignores the objective spectrum… consolidation of wealth/power vs evenly shared wealth/power.
You understand that I never suggested that liberals are left-wing and that was the entire point of my explanation?
There’s nothing stated here that I didn’t already know.
I’m not disagreeing, I’m just building on what you said. ❤️
There’s a surprising number of people - especially in the US, that genuinely think that liberals are leftist… and not just leftist, but “radical left.”
They will also take tankies at their word that tankies are leftist, never mind the definitions.
I’m just expounding on what you said for bystanders, really. Sending good vibes your way, internet friend.
I’m not sure they were disagreeing with you.
The anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois?
- On Authority by Fredrick Engles
And your point is? If it’s that rightist means inevitably have rightist ends, that is correct. Thankfully, possibility is infinite, and not restricted to the false-choice of a binary fallacy.
What is a tankie? Like, where do you draw the line between Marxists, Anarchists, Marxist-Leninists, Maoists, and Tankies? Are only Maoists tankies? Are some Marxist-Leninists tankies, and some not? What turns someone from wanting a worker state run by the proletariat into a tankie, who presumably by your definition is actually Capitalist?
Genuinely asking here, I have been called a tankie for saying people should read Marx, it seems everyone has their own definition of what is permissable and what isn’t.
Tankies are authoritarians. They advocate for and defend centralized and/or entrenched power. At the same time they also advocate for economic nationalization. They believe the latter - “economically benevolent authoritarianism” - makes them leftist. It does not.
In reality, they are merely advocates of bog-standard extreme rightism… feudalism, monarchy, oligarchy, and the like. If your economy and industry is mostly or wholly owned by the state, but the state is run by an entrenched ruling class, then the economy and industry belong to the ruling class, NOT to the people.
One cannot be leftist and also advocate for consolidation or entrenchment of wealth or power… those are literally the defining traits of rightism.
So Marx was a tankie, got it.
How is advocating for a worker state to the right of supporting the Capitalist status quo? You don’t have to agree with it being a good or a bad idea to understand that what you said is fundamentally wrong.
Is “Tankie” just a descriptor for an extreme fringe among Marxists, or is it meant to refer to Marxists in general?
“Tankies” tend to use the term liberal in the classical sense, which lumps conservatives in with progressives.
That’s somewhat confusing since a classical liberal and a modern social liberal are quite distinct things. Plus, even two hundred years ago liberals were distinct from conservatives.
I suppose to tankies, it’s liberals all the way down.
If you believe in democratic socialism, to tankies, you’re a liberal.
“You think China and Russia should be socialist democracies? Pfft, what a typical liberal.”
And if you’re a Social Democrat like me, they’ll think I have a shrine to Milton Friedman.
Most self-aware freikorps supporter, if you’re a social Democrat you’re just announcing to everyone that you are going to be predisposed to trying to accommodate fascism abroad if it means you personally get healthcare and economic benefits.
Social democrats arent democratic socialist but go on
Could have fooled me, these are the same people cheering on the Democrats while they enabled this genocide in Gaza. They’re oh so progressive and worried about minorities, unless you’re from a designated enemy country In which case they’re goose stepping with the rest of the Americans.
Thanks for the demonstration, of tankie ignorance of the difference between socdems and demsocs, of how everyone not a tankie is a liberal or a fascist; and, ironically, what ‘critical support’ is.
Making a distinction without a difference. You’re also acting like there’s some vast landscape of democratic and/or socialists out there, just waiting to spring into power. That might be true, (I doubt it) but if your position on the most important question: “Do we continue to feed innocent bystanders into the war machine” is something you all have in common you’re gonna get painted with the same brush as the rest of the more national socialists.
It’s intentionally confusing. It’s a Russian psyop tactic that tankies have picked up.
I hear the tankies even got the “Liberal Democrats” in the UK to name their party that in order to confuse Americans, on orders from Vladimir Putin. Is there no end to his scheming?
Fuck off, tankie
Learn something about the world, liberal.
I mean to a Tankie, a “liberal” is just someone who disagrees with them. And some apparently consider it a derogatory slur, from the way they say it.
It’s really quite humorous.
Regular-ass Socialists use liberal in the same way you’re describing, as do Anarchists.
As far as I can tell the tankie definition of “liberal” is “anybody that doesn’t have Xi Jinoing’s cock so far down their throat that his balls are playing a bongo solo on their chin.”
That’s the fun part: liberals will call anyone to the left of them tankies, and tankies will call anyone who doesn’t want to kiss Lenin’s red flag liberals, so progressives don’t exist.
Do tankies include accelerationists?
Typically, yes.
Edit: I noticed my app offered to show me more replies, but it looks like I already blocked them. Get fucked, idiots.
what lol
It’s Leate, they believe Lenin wasn’t a Marxist. I can understand disagreeing with Lenin, but certainly not believing him to have not been working off the ideas presented by Marx.
They are exclusively accelerationists.
Yeah, they’re close enough for meme work I think
Hah no. Tankies want him elected.
The tankie’s anti-Trump bicep isn’t that muscular.
Lemme quickly ruin it for you: trump was a “lib” until circa 2009…
e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/magazine/when-hillary-and-donald-were-friends.html https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/memories-of-trumps-wedding
Some of these people from “opposite” political poles are not that different in their actual views…what differs is the means they use and how they position themselves to capture sections of the electorate…which sometimes just ends up feeling like a uniparty…
