MeanwhileOnGrad
"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"
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Meanwhile On Grad
Documenting hate speech, conspiracy theories, apologia/revisionism, and general tankie behaviour across the fediverse. Memes are welcome!
What is a Tankie?
Alternatively, a detailed blog post about Tankies.
(caution of biased source)
Basic Rules:
Sh.itjust.works Instance rules apply! If you are from other instances, please be mindful of the rules. — Basically, don't be a dick.
Hate-Speech — You should be familiar with this one already; practically all instances have the same rules on hate speech.
Apologia — (Using the Modern terminology for Apologia) No Defending, Denying, Justifying, Bolstering, or Differentiating authoritarian acts or endeavours, whether be a Pro-CCP viewpoint, Stalinism, Islamic Terrorism or any variation of Tankie Ideology.
Revisionism — No downplaying or denying atrocities past and present. Calling Tankies shills, foreign/federal agents, or bots also falls under this rule. Extremists exist. They are real. Do not call them shills or fake users as it handwaves their extremism.
Tankies can explain their views but may be criticised or attacked for them. Any slight infraction on the rules above will immediately earn a warning and possibly a ban.
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You'll be warned if you're violating the instance and community rules. Continuing poor behaviour after being warned will result in a ban or removal of your comments. Bans typically only last 24 hours, but each subsequent infraction will double the amount. Depending on the content, the ban time may be increased. You may request an unban at any time.
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And yet in the US at least, extremism won out over the centrist option, I would argue, because the centrist option was TOO centrist, and people were sick of it.
@Reverendender This is what happens when you only provide two options on the ballot - the left and the right (not to mention the president is also the executive). In much of the rest of the democratic world, systems allow for the existence of multiple political parties, so that people have where to choose from. Usually, no single party holds the majority, so forces have to form coalitions in order to form a government. This has the effect of a better representation, as extremist views are usually held only by a small minority of a population (see for example the coalition in the EU Parliament, which is leaving the far-right political families on the side).
There is a flip-side to it, indeed, where a situation like the one in France can occur - where the parliament is almost evenly split between the political groups - i.e. the center, the left and the far right. This could lead to political crises, as it makes coalition negotiations harder, but I think it is still a better outcome than having the far-right get in full control of the government.
The US political system was thought out in a way to keep extremist forces away from the mainstream, which was a good intention, but the architects of this system didn't think about the possibility of at least one of these political forces (i.e. the right in this case) to slide into authoritarianism and extremism.
I saw some opinions on the internet about the fact that there are still some Republicans who do not agree with the MAGA movement, but they're pretty much unable to do anything - MAGA has closed the ranks in the entire GOP leadership and at this point it is pretty much impossible to overthrow it.