Tankie Talk — How ‘Tankies’ Are Delivering Fascism

A ramping up of pro-Kremlin actors from the so-called left and how to spot them in the wild

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The first time I heard the term ‘tankie’ was during RadPod’s second interview with anti-fascist reporter Paul Mason more than a year ago, and it was game-changing for me. RadPod’s fourth episode featured Mason — the author of ‘How to Stop Fascism’ — and we brought him back for Episode 21, where he had just gotten back from Ukraine 36 hours before the beginning of full-blown invasion.

At the beginning of our interview, he described having just come back from a conference in Cambridge about the war, and his frustration with ‘tankies’ — the extremists on the so-called left that are ultimately serving Putin’s interests.

“We face this problem that the same people on the ‘left’ who are soft on Tulsi Gabbard and Donald Trump are the new friends of Putin.”—Paul Mason, April 25, 2022

If you look up the definition of ‘tankie’, you will find references to hardline Stalinists, members of communist groups who believe and defend the Soviet Union — even when clear violations of human rights are on display. The term originated for support of "sending the tanks in" to invade target countries.

The reason I’m dashing off this quick briefing to my readers is the alarming number of messages I received in the last 48 hours from colleagues and friends worried about the impact of US tankies.

To be clear, the role of US tankies is to deliver us right into the arms of fascism.—High Fidelity, RadPod cohost

Information warfare has to evolve to continue its trickery, and the pro-Kremlin actors will take different shape from previous years. Many of them will be people you may have once respected, who are now spewing favorable Russian messaging. Just a few dishonorable mentions:

• Cornel West, who was just on CNN with ex-Daily Caller reporter Kaitlan Collins to blame NATO and the US for the war in Ukraine, is managed by Jill Stein.

• Noam Chomsky is in full anti-NATO, Russian simp mode, and it’s rather alarming that he is leading a MasterClass symposium on disinformation when he’s promoting disinformation, imo

• Robert Kennedy Jr. is promoting extremely dangerous pro-Kremlin narratives. Please review the excellent thread on Kennedy by our friend Pekka Kallioniemi, who identified him as Vatnik #178 on his vatniksoup.com research. Please note who is supporting Kennedy — Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon. His conspiracy junk narratives and anti-vaxx confusionism are straight matches for the Kremlin lie factories, and he is currently walking back a recent anti-semitic statement. We know from Ruth Ben-Ghiat that the walk back is a propaganda tactic. The first message is the point, the walk-back is just politics, as she explained.

So what do we do about tankies, and their proliferation to disrupt democracy heading into 2024?

We start by mentally deleting our old ideas about ideology — we can’t use old left-right frameworks for modern, hybrid ‘horseshoe’ warfare.

Evaluate the messaging you are hearing from the point of view of who it serves and who is hurt.

In this interview that I did with Pekka in Byline Supplement, he taught me to look for four main narratives:

‘Lying on Purpose’ - Exposing a ‘Vatnik Soup’

The main pro-Kremlin talking points are as follows:

“‘Ukrainians are neo-Nazis’, ‘NATO expansion started the proxy war’, ‘Ukraine is corrupt and most of the aid goes to the black market’ or ‘the sanctions are hurting the West more than Russia’,” Kallioniemi told Byline Supplement.

Since our interview, I have watched US tankies add to this list — here is my tweet about Vatnik #178, who says ‘do it for the kids’, in this pure Kremlin propaganda tweet:

Do not be dismissive of insidious messaging such as the one above. The objective of tankies is to peel votes away from Biden in 2024 and other democrats and deliver us fascism.

“Take fascists at their word,” said Mason, in our April 25, 2022 interview.

If they start talking about genocide, if they start talking about the final solution for the ‘Jewish question’ don’t assume that is just some kind of flim-flam to mobilize votes. We have to assume they’re serious about it. On the 24th of February at 5 am, we found out that Putin is indeed serious.”—Paul Mason

What that means is those pro-Kremlin actors have to be taken serious, too.

It’s a very old school Soviet-era KGB tactic—it’s a third position.—Jim Stewartson

Do not be fooled by the third position — do not be fooled by the tankies. Some may be sincere, and not even realize they are doing Putin’s bidding. But if we realize it, we can share with our networks and put a stop to their impact.

Mason also taught me about the power of the prebuttal, how to construct a narrative in advance to anticipate and name the influence game.

“Putin spends 70 billion a year influencing the rest of the world through hybrid warfare, through influence campaigns. What are you doing to make sure none of that money is at work in your operation? What are you doing to make sure you’re not actually tools of a Russian disinformation operation?”—Paul Mason

The response you get may be defensive, but it’s exactly the right question to ask. Once you start asking that question, it’s not hard to trace the networks of influence, it’s not hard to follow the money. For more on this, please read my ‘Agitation and Propaganda’ report on the Kremlin cutout indicted for paying ops on the left and right to keep Americans warring against each other.

Don’t be divided. Find ways to unite people.

As always, stay kind, stay focused, stay loud, and please stay in the trenches with me as we do this work together.

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