This phenomenon is why HN shopped showing comment vote counts publicly some years ago. It used to be you would see HN_Favorite_Person with a +X,XXX comment followed by Someone_Disagrees with +32, and that set the tone for what the whole site thought, or thought it should think.

There are times I miss public vote counts. While it's nice to assess someone's position just on its merit, it's also useful to factor in how much popular support that opinion has. If I disagree with a position that looks well-endorsed by the community, maybe I should take a second look at the topic and whether my minority position is really correct.

Anecdotally, it also feels like HN has much more prolific hard-line extreme sentiments in the years since hiding comment vote counts. People arguing from a position of ideology rather than constructive pursuit of goals. There could be any number of reasons for that, but I'd bet at least a little of it is that now it's harder to look at an extreme opinion and a moderate one and gauge which (if either) represents broader community sentiment.

The HN community has seemed to broadly support the removal of vote counts; whatever drawbacks the decision has, consensus appears to be that it's a good move.