[flunhat]

Look for them, sure. And consider the opposite. But if you believe the opposite of the Current Thing all the time, you're just a mindless contrarian. A good recent example of this phenomenon is all the people who denied that Russia would invade Ukraine -- not because of any primary sources or facts, but because they reflexively countered the mainstream consensus.

The good news is you can spot these people easily by just asking them to explain why they believe the opposite. And if they answer with empty platitudes or lofty statements that don't really address the specifics of the issue at hand, you can keep searching.

[ss108]

Simple, dumb contrarianism explains a lot of radical political beliefs, esp support for Trump.

Obviously, he got votes from a lot of normal Republicans, but there's a decent segment of support for him where people were apolitical before, but latched on to him out of sheer, immature contrarianism.