Have political documentaries, once considered a liberal monopoly, now shifted to the right? Or, as Tom Brueggemann puts it in his recent article on the website Indiewire.com, has Dinesh D’Souza become the new Michael Moore?

So far this year the top doc at the box office has been D’Souza’s “Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party,’’ released July 22. It placed ninth on the top 10, already pulling in $4.6 million. His previous film, “2016: Obama’s America’’ (2012), grossed $33.4 million. Though these figures don’t approach the biggest hauls of Moore’s 27-year career — “Fahrenheit 911’’ (2004) remains the highest grossing documentary of all time, earning $119 million — they dwarf the meager $3.8 million that Moore’s latest release, “Where to Invade Next’’(2015), has earned so far.

Certainly the two filmmakers take similar approaches in presenting their cases. Both favor a first-person style. Like Moore, D’Souza bullies, hectors, ridicules, and exaggerates to get his point across. Both filmmakers have personalities that infuriate those with differing opinions.

Both are free and easy with the facts, willing to sacrifice context, or to hyperbolize, to make a point. Unlike Moore, however, who hammers away at the more obvious weaknesses of his opponents (such as Charlton Heston’s geriatric infirmities in Moore’s 2002 film, “Bowling for Columbine’’), D’Souza prefers the Republican strategy of attacking the enemy’s strengths.

So you thought the Democrats were champions of racial justice? D’Souza reveals the fact — “swept under the rug’’ for those who didn’t take American history in high school, perhaps — that Democrats supported slavery and segregation. This he fancifully illustrates by a reenactment of Woodrow Wilson infamously watching “Birth of a Nation’’ at the White House in 1915. When the Klan appears on horseback, they leap right off the screen and chase Wilson away.

Could D’Souza’s film conceivably win a best documentary Oscar, an honor bestowed on “Columbine?’’ If reviews are any indication, the prospects aren’t good — on metacritic.com, the film review aggregator, “Secret History’’ has so far rated zero out of 100. True, critics tend to lean leftward, but even Kyle Smith of the conservative New York Post described the film as “Cheesier than a Kraft Singles truck, but half as subtle.’’

The value of a political documentary, however, does not lie in how many awards it’s won or rave reviews it garners, but in its impact on audience’s hearts and minds. Can a documentary actually change public opinion, and in effect, alter history?

“I often feel like a failure,’’ Moore told me when I interviewed him in 2007 and asked him this. “I started with ‘Roger & Me’ because I was hoping to do something to save my hometown. That didn’t happen. It’s in worse shape than ever. School shootings continue. We’re in the fifth year of this war. You could make a case that Michael Moore is fairly ineffectual in terms of using his art to effect change. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself. Maybe I’m taking the short view of this. Maybe in the long run it will have a cumulative effect.’’

For Dinesh D’Souza, the long-run effect of his film might be known on Nov. 8.

www.dineshdsouza.com/movies/hillarys-america