See, this is why I continue to conclude that “tankie” is just a pejorative for "person to the left of me. Because whenever someone who insists that’s not what it means gives me their definition, and I try to apply it consistently, they instantly get huffy and essentially admit that they can’t give a different definition that actually matches with how they use it, exactly as you’ve done here.

I have done my own googling and research, and my finding has been that the only consistent feature of things that get you called a tankie is that they are to the left of the anglosphere Overton window.