This is exactly wrong. It's not having an opinion on a controversial topic that makes one a crank, it's whether that opinion is well supported and respectfully

This is exactly wrong. It's not having an opinion on a controversial topic that makes one a crank, it's whether that opinion is well supported and respectfully expressed. In fact, mike_hearn's first link is to a blog post where he debunks claims of evidence that Russian bots influenced the Brexit vote. (He doesn't offer evidence that that didn't happen; what kind of evidence could exist? But he does argue that the alleged evidence offered by others that there was such influence is unconvincing.)