Does Trump see this?

I wonder if Trump is too much of an egotist to realize he's better off not winning Iowa by too much, if at all. He needs Cruz to be a strong factor in the race going forward, or the winner of the Bush/Christie/Kasich/Rubio fight will surely beat him over time.

Robert Reich gets it right.

"Political 'pragmatism' may require accepting 'half loaves' – but the full loaf has to be large and bold enough in the first place to make the half loaf meaningful. That’s why the movement must aim high – toward a single-payer universal health, free public higher education, and busting up the biggest banks, for example."

It's not jut the right wing. The left has also helped create the atmosphere Trump exploits.

As correctly noted by people NPR interviews, it's counterproductive when the FBI monitors mosques and discussions in the mosques about terrorism. Even when tweens express sympathy for violent and/or extreme positions, it's much better for the adults to explain why that's wrong in a calm manner, safe from surveillance, so everyone is speaking authentically.

Trump is a pernicious troll, and deserves the criticism he gets. But we create opportunities for him and those like him when we shut down discussions where people honestly try to reconcile their prejudiced perceptions of the world with what the rest of us have realized.

It's easy to get tired of teaching the basics of seeing through the news' oppressive tropes over and over again. It's easy to assume that everyone who doesn't already know better is actively trying not to know better. But sometimes, they aren't. In those cases, when we shout at them and tell them to shut up, we push them more firmly into the bigots' camp. It is better to teach, patiently--being wary of trolls, but not being too quick to conclude someone is one.