Years ago a progressive friend asked my opinion about one of the right’s kookiest political news sites. “Do they believe the things they write,” he wondered, “or is it a grift?”

Ah, the eternal question. One that no one but the kooks themselves know the answer to. 

My response to him was that I’m not sure it’s either/or.

Sometimes it is. The latest court filing from Dominion Voting Systems has pretty definitively answered the “kooks or grifters?” question about Fox News, for instance.