TBH I'm still not quite sure why you're arguing. Do you think Stalinists don't exist, or do you think they're just so negligible that it's only playing into capitalists' hands to make fun of "tankies" because it gives people a term they can use overly broadly since accused "tankies" might not just be Stalinists?
My issue with Stalinists isn't that I don't like their "theory of change" per se. I think if the soviets in the USSR had been legitimately democratic, singlen party state and all, I would be fine with calling the USSR an actual socialist state. My issue with Stalinists is the constant warping of history the handwaving of atrocities, the betrayal of the ideals of socialism, etc.
No, I don't believe that there is a large contingent of the American left who has a better opinion about Stalin than the USSR politburo circa 1956, I really don't, and the only evidence I ever seen are stories about a friend of a friend two towns over whose Canadian girlfriend was super into Pol Pot. That, and memes from reddit.
I will quote myself again about what I think -
I have never met a "tankie" in real life, and I have been hanging around "far" leftist circles since the 90s. I've seen some edgelord people online who are posting dumb shit, and I've seen a whole lot of trolling, but I have yet to see any evidence that there is a big contingent of people in the west who believe that Stalin was a great leader and they are organizing politically to bring Stalin 2: electric gulagoo.
I did however meet a lot of people who accused anyone who is on the left of them or didn't support American foreign policy of being a Stalinist, communist, or more recently, a "tankie".
I think this whole "tankie" hysteria is somewhere between red scare 2.0 and an attempt to not engage honestly with people on the left.
This thread mention "tankie" more than "fascist".
For real, you met that many Stalnist in your life that you have an actual theory about their ideological framework?
I honestly think this is mostly shadowboxing against a caricature of the left that doesn't really exist in real life.