Quicklinks - open in a new tab

Msft has overcomplicated this - you can see the default behavior by inspecting links added to the text web part. The data-interception tag is set to "on" by default, forcing same tab behavior. If you check "open in a new tab", data-interception is "off" and the standard target="_blank" tag is added and isn't overridden. Clearly Sharepoint detects if a link is internal and adds data-interception="on" to force it to open in the same tab, UNLESS (and this is where it gets silly), you're on a system page (like a library). How they come up with this logic is beyond me.
It would be simple to add the open in new tab option to the quick links web part to defeat the default behavior, regardless of whether the link is internal or external, but Msft has ignored the numerous complaints about this - as usual - and the end result is they're just pushing the use of all the url shortening apps out there.