I’ve run across these terms several times, but without enough context to figure out what they mean. Could someone help me out, please?
ETA All of you are amazing! A huge thank you to everyone who responded, and an extra thank you to those who have provided links or explanations to further and/or related information. I am learning so much by reading all of these comments!
Sealioning is the constant bad faith, feigning ignorance, asking for evidence of everything under the guise of “just asking questions”. Then ignoring any evidence presented and moving on to the next demand. Used to shut down discourse entirely.
Tankies are leftists that defend or deny the atrocities committed by authoritarian communist regimes like the Soviet Union or the CCP. It was first used to describe communists in Great Britain that defended the Soviet Union for using tanks to crush anti-communist revolutions.
It doesn’t have to be leftists, anyone who does that is a tankie.
Is that what sealioning is though?
Never heard the phrase sealioning before, but I have seen it everywhere.
Ironically history has proven that decision to have been the correct one and even the soft-left here in Britain today acknowledges that the people who were called “tankies” originally when that happened were all completely correct.