Trump was able to win election for president in the US, one of the most powerful positions in the world. Is that not the ultimate example of a billionaire coming out "on top"?

>Is that not the ultimate example of a billionaire coming out "on top"?

If you want to pretend the end of his term and everything afterwards never happened, sure. But as of now, he's the ultimate example of spectacular failure despite his resources. He is still a billionaire, though. I suppose it depends on where you decide the top is.

I dunno. It's quite clear that while he may never be president again, there's absolutely no way he's going to A) end up in jail or B) lose a significant amount of his wealth.

That's exactly the "coming out on top" the original comment was referring to.

I'm not sure what you mean - of course the end of his term happened, we elect presidents for 4 years in the US, were you expecting him to become a dictator or something?

Are you referring to the fact he lost the most recent election? He did pretty good in my opinion, especially considering now notably unpopular he was in his first term. And his opponent got the most votes ever in history (and he was number 2!)

> his opponent got the most votes ever in history (and he was number 2!)

That's because the population is larger than ever in history.

I was not a fan of the man, certainly didn’t vote for him, but there is little doubt that the man is still immensely popular and frankly feared by the democrats because of his popularity and the decline in popularity of President Biden.

It's not failure. The guy went from being a joke target game show host to POTUS. If you ask the Democrats and establishment Republicans, he was the most important President in recent history (although they view this negatively.) The fallout from his election snowballed to the level that it's threatening a world war, and he's the obvious favorite for the next presidency. It's not failure.

It seems that there is a level of eternal embarrassment the media, doubters, etc have felt since when they failed to stop the Trump presidency in 2016.

They made sure that they covered and did anything they could to stop him getting re-elected in 2020 which after losing lead to Jan 6th. Even after the acquittal, he is yet again still talked about running once again and did not run into another war.

I would have expected the media, and editors to have ignored him by now, but the fact they are finding it difficult to do so tells us that they are taking his possiblity of re-election seriously such that they know he could do it again.

Indeed, its not failure at all.

Not from your perspective or mine. But Trump retains a lot of power, controlling one of the two major parties, the leading news organization, a large movement, and plenty of assets.