I don’t mean to be unkind. Let me say at the outset that I have zero dogs in this fight and am not qualified to respond to the substance of your rebuttal. However, I think the tone of your rebuttal completely misses the point made by the OP.
Nobody is asking for my advice here, but if I were asked I would tell them they have a blind spot wrt to outside perception. Perhaps they’re too much in their own bubble, or overly locked into an us-versus-them posture.