Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to authoritarian communists, especially those who support or defend acts of repression by such regimes, their allies, or deny the occurrence of the events thereof.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie

Asking on this instance though, the Basecamp for them essentially, you’re going to get a lot of answers ranging from “it’s a meaningless term” to “Just something liberals slap on everything anti Communist!”

No communist calls the ROK an “occupier,” it’s the US Empire that is occupying Korea, with the ROK’s government set up directly by them. This whole comment is really bad, to be honest. In practice, “tankie” is essentially a pejorative for “communist.” I recommend the Prolewiki article on “Tankies,” as well as Nia Frome’s essay “Tankies.”

that is occupying Korea

Yes exactly, the government of SK is called an occupier by tankies, despite being democratically elected by the people of SK

Tankies do not automatically communists, that’s just a tactic you guys use to conflate the term

No, the government of the southern half of Korea, the Republic of Korea, is not an “occupier.” The democratically elected state was the People’s Republic of Korea (PRK), which spanned the entire peninsula before the US Empire came in, declared it illegal, and split the country in two, against the will of Koreans, and installed the dictator Rhee Syngman in place. The PRK was a quasi-socialist state that predated both the DPRK and ROK’s governments.

Again, “tankie” in practice is just a pejorative for communists, akin to “pinko” or “commie.” The fact that you’re getting very basic communist stances on Korea completely wrong here betrays any sense of legitimacy you have on the subject.

Again, “tankie” in practice is just a pejorative for communists

It isn’t, though. Tankies want the term to be a pejorative term for communists because it hides the criticism for the term. Calling someone a tankie is a criticism that their values don’t match what they support politically. After all, the term comes from supporters of the Soviet Union using tanks to crush a local revolution that didn’t comply with Soviet power politics.

“Tankie” isn’t a political ideology, it’s a McCarthyite strawman with ready-made characteristics designed to make it so that you don’t have to respond to the points communists make. The origin of the term being in putting down the 1956 CIA supported and MI6 armed fascist counter-revolution in Hungary where the fascists let Nazis out of prison to lynch Jews and communists doesn’t make any difference on today’s usage.

Tankie isn’t a political ideology, it is a commentary on the practice of policy in comparison to stated beliefs.