A super important component is that with these extremists, I can tell them exactly what I think and believe, and they will contradict me to my face and say no,

A super important component is that with these extremists, I can tell them exactly what I think and believe, and they will contradict me to my face and say no, that is not true, you believe x y z. And the criteria for the claim is simply that I'm not in wholehearted agreement with them. The degree doesn't matter, the ideology demands absolutely submission. It is a mass delusion to say a substantial portion of the population is unable to self report their own beliefs - to say that your group knows better what millions of outsiders to the group think I think the attacks on an honest intellectual interested in the truth not the answer an ideology demands, specifically the attempt to cancel Steven Pinker is an ideal example of this