The guy was a mentally ill crank ~ his followers are on that route themselves ~ giving them credit rather than Ritalin or Thorazine just encourages them.
Put the real stuff in their chai when they're not looking.
Nonetheless, it was one of Alinsky’s tactics to “isolate and ridicule.” That it has become imbued in the very fabric of their perception does not mean that it was not a planned part of the strategy of the Statists.