Coach Lombardi of the great Green Bay Packers of his era:
“Winning is not everything, it is the only thing”.
Trump had the toughest job as a candidate running against seasoned carer politicians including governors and senators. He could have never won without merciless attacks on his competition.
Trump was liked by enough voters to win him the presidency. He was not running to be “liked” and lose the nomination. I attended one of his rallies during primaries. My first hand observation is that the 18,000 people who waited in 3-4 hour long lines to get into the venue absolutely loved Trump.
your analogy can be expanded. Sometimes you put everything into a game and it costs you the game next week and the ones the next season..