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To be more specific about what the other responses say:

Being "equivalent to a TM" and being "equivalent to the Python compiler" mean the exact same thing. Pretty much every widely used model of computation is equivalent in computing power to Turing machines. The notable exceptions are all weaker than Turing machines, such as arithmetic circuits.

The importance of Turing Completeness is the capabilities it offers, not the model of the machine that offers them. The machine doesn't matter at all, which is precisely why the "strip of tape" is still used.

You might like the RASP: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random-access_stored-program...

Considering that all of life essentially runs on a strip of tape and machine(s) that can read and write to it, I think it's still pretty relevant.