This is ridiculous. It's like saying membership of a Nazi party wouldn't imply extremism. Of course being a card-carrying communist is an extreme position. Communists around the world have repeatedly established horrific dictatorships that murdered their own people in vast numbers, usually accompanied with mass manipulation of the population through propaganda. If a behavioural psychologist of all people thinks that's the type of government she wants to have, it is de facto proof of extremism, and says nothing good about the people around her who say nothing about it.

Consider how it'd look if she was a member of a Nazi Party. Nobody would accept that. There's no difference.

Believe whatever you want, but that's just not where the shared cultural assumption is anymore. It carries the same weight to someone born after the fall of the USSR as asserting someone must be royalty because of their purple jacket.

Convincing people requires that you work forward from the assumptions they hold toward your views. I'm not sure what asserting that other people actually do hold your assumptions when they keep telling you they don't accomplishes.

You're asserting that the "shared cultural assumptions" have changed, and I'm asserting:

1. No they haven't. Lots of people found Michie's associations unacceptable and astonishing.

2. Anyone who does think that communism is not any longer an extreme position, is simply not well informed. Communism itself hasn't changed. Go look at the state of Xinjiang to see this. It's supposedly full of concentration camps.

>1. No they haven't. Lots of people found Michie's associations unacceptable and astonishing.

Okay, and if you continue to communicate the way you are, those are the only people who will be interested in your ideas. You have to play the same game as your audience if you want to win.