Jim Geraghty has an interesting response to the slightly misguided assessment by the usually wise Ben Shapiro, about how to deal with the anger of Donald Trump’s supporters. As Geraghty correctly notes, Shapiro is just wrong to say that not enough people have actually tried focusing on Trump’s real political views. Geraghty also is right to say that at some point, justifiable anger expressed in utterly irrational ways is just not able to be counteracted by rational argument.

But that doesn’t mean that nothing can be done to counteract such irrationality. I’ve had some experience with trying to deal with utterly counterproductive “F-U” or “send-a-message” political movements — in Louisiana in 1989–91. It involved a man who shall go nameless who, rather than just being obnoxious and buffoonish, actually was hateful, hate-filled, and dangerous. To be clear, I am not comparing Trump’s views to his. But those who were actually on the ground in Louisiana back then, fighting against him, know that very little of his appeal was tied to his racial views — but a great part of his appeal was based on his status as a supposed messenger to send a middle finger to the state’s political establishment (and later, as Bushism replaced Reaganism, to the national establishment as well). The same “don’t confuse me with the facts, just go to H***” attitude was prevalent then.

Those of us who organized against the hater back then found four tactics to be particularly useful and effective. First, one element of the fight must continue to be consistent, patient recitation of actual facts about the man’s background, views, and current transgressions. Just because many of the man’s supporters begin in an irrational mood doesn’t mean that none of them will ever respond to rationality once they calm down.

But that sort of fact-based rationality goes only so far. It alone won’t win the day. Which leads to tactic No. 2: Ignore the offensive candidate.

Alas, it’s almost impossible for this to work in the short term, because of course there will be plenty of media outlets that want to take advantage of the feeding frenzy, and its ratings, by keeping the frenzy going. Nonetheless, responsible outlets will take a sort of modified-limited ignore-the-dude stance, which amounts to this: Don’t go out of one’s way to include the offensive candidate in the news. When he makes legitimate news, cover him, but don’t run to him for comment at the drop of a hat; don’t assume that everybody in the reading or viewing audience wants to hang on his every word; and do work extra hard to get comments on issues of the day from political and civic leaders other than the offensive guy when those other leaders have legitimate expertise on the subject. In other words, slowly divert the oxygen from the offensive candidate’s fire, into a place where oxygen allows breathing rather than feeds a conflagration.

Tactics three and four are the most effective, though. Tactic three is ridicule — not of the candidate’s supporters, but of the candidate himself. Turn his own supporters against him by using humor to make him look like a pathetic loser. People like Trump feed off of anger directed at him, and feed off of other direct attacks. But they can’t stand being ridiculed. And when the humor carries an obvious underlying truth about their lack of character or lack of “cool,” or some other flaw, then their supporters stop seeing the candidate as a strong messenger and start seeing him as an embarrassment.

Tactic four is the most important: Find a way to convince would-be supporters of the offensive candidate that electing him will harm their own well-being, especially their economic well-being. He can’t be their champion if he would actually hurt their pocketbooks.

In Louisiana in 1991, we gained traction by convincing voters that electing the wrong man would lead to a devastating national economic boycott of Louisiana, with all of our businesses and jobs going to Texas. In Trump’s case, his stances in favor of major land seizures through eminent domain, combined with his bankruptcies where not just lenders but small-business vendors got hurt, are ripe issues for convincing people that Trump doesn’t fight for the “little guy” or for middle America, but instead rooks middle America whenever he can get away with it.

So, to recap: Repeat the facts; ignore Trump when possible; ridicule him; and demonstrate how he would hurt his supporters’ own causes or well-being.

These tactics have the added virtue of being entirely honest approaches, because every one of them can be done without fudging a single aspect of Trump’s record, personality, or essential nature.