Tankies are atheists and the Taliban are religious fundamentalists who oppose everything that modern tankies stand for. If anything they’re closer to the original tankies who had similar social values and who happened to be supported by Russian communist Islamists in the beginning. Islamists and the original Bolsheviks generally uphold the values of the Torah but the Marxists just put an atheist spin on it and called it secular morality.

This is the problem with ironically glorifying extremist groups is that many other people aren’t going to know that you’re joking. At least in places like Jreg’s community you generally have a sense of post irony.

I think this was from the start an outrageous enough claim that I don’t think it was meant to be serious: Jesus invented the term?

Such phrasing is light-hearted, but that doesn’t mean the broader point isn’t meant sincerely. If someone says, “That’s why Jesus invented alcohol” after someone complains about having a hard day, that doesn’t mean that they literally believe Jesus invented alcohol, but it does mean that they regard alcohol as an appropriate response to the situation.

I’m not a fan of tankies, but I’m not convinced that their philosophy overlaps significantly with the Taliban.

The core of tankieism, as detailed elsewhere on this sub, is a simple tribalism. Thinking of it in terms of ideological consistency is a mistake.