Saw a comrade post this as a response in the Mousolini dunk thread, that become a dunk thread on an annoying lib calling us tankies lol.
Thought this was really insightful, and from a different angle than what i usually see as the rascist connotations of "tankie" and of western left anti-communism, and thought it deserved its own thread. Particularly, since the influx of western anti-cummunist takes we've been dealing with recently.
Tankie itself is decades old. It was initially used by British Trotskyites to refer to other British communists who were in favor of the USSR using tanks to quell the 1956 Hungarian uprising.
Personally I think tankie will just get replaced with being called a communist/commie/pinko again. I think we only have a few more years until western liberals realize they're not actually socialists and begin outright identifying as willing capitalist subjects on the side of imperialism.
Being called a communist will carry with it the implication that you're a traitor to western civilization or whatever. The nationalist brainwork will become explicit rather than hidden under layers.
Derogatory political terms don't like having nuance. Tankie is currently too nuanced. It's used to mean "I'm a socialist but not like those scary, other socialists who like bad countries like China." Derogatory political terms just want to mean "bad thing"