Originally a light-hearted post poking fun at and doing a survey to gather input, but it has turned into a thought-provoking deeper dive into what it really means to be someone that people would call a “tankie”. Note that to some (die-hard conservatives), we all are “tankies” on the Fediverse, but is there a meaning beyond the pejorative of merely “holding a belief that I do not personally agree with”? Come and join the fun, or read about the community consensus even long into the future?
I cannot see the source of the downvoting that would help illuminate that but since you asked, these are my guesses:
I prefer to take ownership of my own failings, even if if only potential ones - though again this is only guesswork, since nobody was brave enough to actually speak their minds since it would require stepping out of the anonymity provided by the downvote button - and have decided to rarely use “tankie” anymore, as in only if I mean to give offense, similar to “magat” in the USA (also maghat as in M.A.G.A. red hat, also sounds like maggot). (Probably I will forget though, so it will be a process to retrain my mind.)
Though I am still not certain what should be utilized instead. Perhaps “authoritarian” or lately I am leaning towards “fascist”, though it is tricky b/c people with those type of leanings rarely are intellectually honest enough to be okay with a label that perfectly describes them - e.g. in the USA the far-right extremists are “patriots” who are “defending” (rather than violently overthrowing) “democracy” (oh, ahem, excuse me, only for a single day though, and if you believe that…). So not using that pejorative label is something that true leftists might sometimes want to do out of consideration, yet virtually no matter what term is used it will never be deemed acceptable (perhaps “Marxist-Lennin socialist” but that’s a longer phrase and doesn’t roll nearly as well as e.g. “tankie”, plus ignores how many people claim to follow those principles yet in fact do not, nor are those claimed-to-be-believed-in principles even the subject of consideration when rather someone is talking about extremely heavy-handed authoritarian principles, that e.g. lead to literal murder, or defense of same), and ofc on the other side so very many people want the term to be as offensive as possible.
So in short I walked into it by discussing a contentious topic, which despite how it is preventing the Fediverse from growing, is something that most people would prefer that we not discuss. Well… certain people would anyway, and others are just tired of it so are collaborating with those. But since, again, nobody was actually brave enough to speak out as to why, this is all mere guesswork. And your guess is as good as mine:-).