Dear Donald, May I offer you a modest slice of advice about how to go out a winner?

Dear Donald,

Please excuse the informality, but our paths have crossed before. As an editor at New York magazine, I attended the dazzling book party for the launch of your soon-to-be bestseller, The Art of the Deal. We were both far younger then, but your magnetism drew a glittering portfolio of famous New Yorkers to Trump Tower.

And, of course, we talked by phone several years later when you were in Chicago in 1996 preparing for the opening of your riverboat casino in Gary, Indiana . . . er, Buffington Harbor, as you preferred to call it, and I was the editor of Chicago magazine. Yes, we ran a story on the launch, but from your limo, you urged me to put you with your new casino on the magazine’s cover. I pushed back gently and you warned that I was making a terrible mistake. In retrospect, perhaps I did — the issue might have sold better celebrating you and your boat than it did with my ultimate choice, a model in a bathing suit saluting “Summer Weekends.”

But I’m reaching out now on something else — to offer my own modest slice of advice.

You and I both know how the ongoing events in Congress will unfold and ultimately end. The Democrats in the House will vote to impeach, but Nancy Pelosi’s strategic decision to narrow the indictment will redound to your advantage with voters and the Senate. In the full light of a public airing, your phone conversation with the Ukrainian president will be seen as just another friendly chat between a couple of savvy entertainers. Nothing to get your knickers in a knot over. Your acquittal in the Senate is inevitable.

That likely takes us to early 2020. Who knows who will be carrying the mantle for Democrats by then? Doesn’t matter. Your Pennsylvania coal miners and Wisconsin farmers will never abandon you for wonky promises and gassy indignation, and the suburban women will start thinking more about their stock portfolios than about loose talk of grabbing . . . well, you know what I mean.

But pause for a moment. Consider that long slog between the acquittal and election day. Sure, you will enjoy some wild rallies with your screaming base in their red MAGA hats. But meantime all those relentless reporters will be flapping around you, squawking questions, holding back nothing to make you look bad. Your staff will be nagging you to read position papers or at least sit through lectures by know-it-all windbags. Someone may even try to talk you into cutting back your tweets. And come fall you will have to suffer through debates. Make no mistake — the Democrat, whoever it is, will torture you with facts and figures that are nothing but red tape to a man with your gut instincts. Still, the pundits will yap that you are unprepared and unfit.

And if that latecomer Mike Bloomberg steals the nomination from the overcrowded Democratic field, your media enemies won’t miss a chance to show a chart illustrating Bloomberg’s towering fortune next to your relatively modest one. Sure, none of this will make a difference in the long run, but the process could turn painful and possibly . . . humiliating.

Now consider an alternative: Leisurely days on the golf course, quiet dinners with friends at Mar-a-Lago, nothing more troubling on the schedule than an occasional meeting with Ivanka and Jared to see how the world is holding up and lunches with Mark Burnett to make plans for The Apprentice: White House. Your doc would certainly endorse a relaxed schedule. And imagine the victory laps — streets lined with celebrants in red states, grateful prosecutors dropping charges in blue.

You know where I’m going here. After the Senate sets you free, make a surprise announcement: You won! You came in a winner and now you will go out a winner. You will not seek nor accept a nomination for a second term. You will spend the remaining months of your presidency quietly ensuring — maybe with a tweet here or there — that the country stays on track.

Donald, we both know you never really wanted to be president. You ran to bask in the spotlight and burnish your brand. Mission accomplished! Still, think of what you’ve achieved as president. In your terms, almost perfect. All that remains to Make America Great Again is one final, gorgeous gesture: Leave.

Yours very sincerely,

Richard Babcock

Richard Babcock teaches journalism at Northwestern’s Medill School.

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