‘What is Zoran Mamdani's policies? And why do Tankies hate him?’

I am honestly convinced that at least half of the regulars on /r/tankiejerk are just making crap up as they go along. That, or they base their preconceptions on cartoons. If you think that I am being overly cynical, look at this thread on /r/InformedTankie and then compare it with these users’ replies. Zohran is a mildly annoying socdem at worst; he may be ineffectual but I think that we all understand that we have better things to do with our time than gripe about him all day. Bernie Sanders is a more obnoxious politician and even then we don’t spend much time griping about him. (What is it, like once a month, maybe? Give or take?)

Anyway, here is a selection of comments:

‘Because he's not literally Stalin therefore he is equivalent to Hitler’ [+53]

‘Don't just believe me cause I'm not super informed either, but from what I can tell he's a democratic socialist and they hate him because he's not a member of the "right" party and doesn't spend all his time trying to establish the Socialist Soviet Republic of Reddit’ [+66]

‘Tankies rely heavily on lying to obfuscate their fascist politics, and one of the bigger lies is that only violent revolution from a Great Man dictator can implement "Socialism". A democratically elected representative who intends to implement social safety nets without violence inherently undermines that entire claim’ [+9]

‘From what I've seen it's pretty much just that he isn't in total lockstep with them ideologically. That and they fetishise losing and achieving nothing so the possibility of a real progressive winning and making a positive impact hurts them.’ [+49]

‘Tankies hate anyone who isn’t a Vanguard larper lol. Fucking wannabe revolutionary dorks who’ve probably never been in a real fight in their life.’ [+11]

‘Because anyone who doesn't love Stalin, Xi Jinping, Assad, and Putin and thinks everything they do is great and justified is terrible in their eyes, and he doesn't like any of them.’ [+7]

‘He's a leftist, a democratic socialist. Problem tankies have, well it can be a few different ones. Here's a list of some of the most common ones I have seen.

1. He'll fail: they believe it's not going to work bc he's going to sell out to corporations and therefore bad (he hasn't and shows no signs of doing so)
2. He's too moderate: socialism without violence is not enough, he isn't calling for an armed revolution and is therefore one of THEM!!!!!!
3. He's American and Brown: they see him as bad because of him being an American, and potentially a race traitor or something like that, basically just racism
4. Liberalism: they see him as liberal for whatever reason, and to be fair he's within the definition of liberalism, but being liberal to some tankies is the same as being a Nazi
5. Democracy: a surprising amount of communists (not all, but more than expected) see democracy as a bad thing, and by participating in a system that practices this (or under capitalism maybe) he is simply evil’ [+2]

‘Tankies hate anybody that isn't a vanguardist revolutionary.’ [+34]

‘Tankies hate everything and everyone.’ [+2]

Do these kids have any idea how exhausting that would be?

I hate to point out the obvious, but this isn’t a cartoon. Stop treating it like one and patiently do some actual research instead.

ETA: I just noticed that that thread is flaired as ‘serious’. I have no comment.