It is a con, but these people are authentically insane

This guy apparently merited a longer obit than Sleepy Fred Thompson.

Early on, Mr. Carto sometimes presented himself as a conventional conservative activist. In 1956, he operated what he called “a nerve center” at the Republican convention that distributed 100,000 pieces of literature. He said he was ready to offer an immediate right-wing alternative if President Dwight D. Eisenhower chose not to seek re-election.

In the 1960s, he contributed money to congressmen to try to stymie civil rights legislation, and several times was invited to testify before congressional committees. He later helped bolster what became fairly conventional rightist causes: drastically slashing the income tax and blocking a constitutional amendment to guarantee women equal rights. His positions on immigration, globalization and multiculturalism — all of which he loathed — were influential.

In the 2012 Republican presidential campaign, Representative Ron Paul accepted the support of Mr. Carto’s newspaper The American Free Press, but later stipulated he did not endorse its racial views. Some of Mr. Paul’s writing had appeared in the paper, possibly without his knowledge.

“Willis has talked to me about playing the role of a respectable conservative when his true feelings are those of a racial nationalist,” Louis T. Byers, a right-wing activist and theoretician, told The Washington Post in 1971. “I was as close to being a friend as anyone Carto has known.”

 Fortunately, there were witnesses.