It often depends on the first comment which gets traction (>5 upvotes)
> opposing opinions downvoted and/or ridiculed.
I'm not so sure this is a huge effect. I often express "incorrect opinions", and get some amount of downvoting or ridicule, but not usually to a significant degree. When I've had my comments dogpiled, I can see that it happened because of how I stated my opinion more than because of the opinion itself.
For evidence, the occasionally highly-upvoted Jacobin Magazine here at ground zero of popular capitalist discourse: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jacobinmag.com / https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jacobin.com
Sometimes the same story will be flag killed one day, front page the next.
But then the next day a different post on the same topic could have an entirely opposite hivemind, often no discernible reason.