Sort of person that, in the UK, might be just to the left of the current Labor party leadership (but right of a lot of the party) or on the SocDem end of the LibDems.
I would never call a leftist a “tankie” because they are a leftist. People who do that are idiots. The important part of the word is the support of authoritarian regimes.
Which is pretty weird nowadays because neither Russia, China nor North Korea are even communist/leftist anymore.
That isn’t true though: the Nordic countries are undeniably authoritarian from a leftist perspective, but you never see Nordic model socdems being called “tankies”. Failed leftist projects like Catalonia or the Paris Commune were also undeniably “authoritarian” by the definition applied to more successful projects, but supporters of them are never called tankies. The Black Panthers, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, all supported “authoritarian regimes”
What it really boils down to is serious opposition to Western liberalism.
Half a century ago it meant people who supported the soviet union using tanks to put down a cia backed coup in Hungary.
Modern times in the west it means anyone left of AOC.
That would be a large swathe of Europe, so… no.
Oh I meant the US framing.
Here. Bernie Sanders is literally Stalin. In Europe he’s what? Left leaning moderate?
Fairly normal social democrat.
Sort of person that, in the UK, might be just to the left of the current Labor party leadership (but right of a lot of the party) or on the SocDem end of the LibDems.
I would never call a leftist a “tankie” because they are a leftist. People who do that are idiots. The important part of the word is the support of authoritarian regimes.
Which is pretty weird nowadays because neither Russia, China nor North Korea are even communist/leftist anymore.
That isn’t true though: the Nordic countries are undeniably authoritarian from a leftist perspective, but you never see Nordic model socdems being called “tankies”. Failed leftist projects like Catalonia or the Paris Commune were also undeniably “authoritarian” by the definition applied to more successful projects, but supporters of them are never called tankies. The Black Panthers, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, all supported “authoritarian regimes”
What it really boils down to is serious opposition to Western liberalism.