Dear Donald

First, congratulations. You actually won. You have succeeded in giving a middle finger salute to the entire establishment – journalists, politicians, pollsters, the lot. Your gut was stronger than their dull analysis. Your communication was more effective than theirs, despite all their education.

You would have won even if you had lost. To make it a close election would have been enough to take revenge on all the sneering hypocrites, those who vacillated about supporting you, denigrated your campaigning skills and sneakily tried to fix the results. And you could have finessed a narrow defeat into a new media empire very handily.

But you did not lose. Somehow, you won. Obviously, even you were at bit surprised by the victory, and rather wrong footed by it.  And winning changes the game completely, because it changes the stakes and your motivation.

We know you are motivated by ego. You get kicks from doing a deal and from winning and from recognition. You especially like to get back at people who refuse to recognize you. So the last eighteen months have been all about those drivers.

The elite treated you literally but not seriously. The electorate was smarter, treating you seriously but not literally. Well, the elite will take you seriously now! You’ve earned their respect – indeed you’ve rubbed their noses in their own sneering dirt. All those articles and meetings where it was obvious that you were not considered quite their class – too brash, too brassy in your choice of women, not erudite and a polymath like them. Well – all that education didn’t really help them in the election, did it?

So every word you uttered, every tweet you offered, every document you supported had the sole purpose of winning the election. Essentially your platform was “Trust me”. As an outsider with business skills you claimed to be able to be effective, and everything else was just noise.

This annoys purists, who feel elections should be about detailed policies and not just personalities. Well, maybe they are right, but your voters did not seem to care. Further, these same erudite purists were the ones to devalue elections, not you. Apart from Obamacare, what did Obama run on that was implemented? Which of Hillary’s dull proposals stood any chance of getting through congress, and didn’t she know it? How many members of congress actually consider the interests of their electorate? Just look at the budget compromise at the end of 2014, full of sops to special interests and sneaked through with minimal scrutiny. No, you are not the one who broke the system.

Now those same pundits who derided your platform continue with the same mistake of taking things literally. Every day there is some story about what you will or won’t do based on who you are meeting with and what you said in the campaign.

They don’t get it. You have won now. The campaign and all you said in it are history. For now you will be president. And your motivation will still be driven by your ego. You don’t just want to be the president; you want to be a great president, up there Lincoln and Rossevelt. You are already thinking about your legacy. That is what is consuming you now, and that will eventually determine your actions.

Setting up for success will follow three key principles. First, as a delegating CEO, you need good people. Second, as much as possible you want to be insulated against events, to have space to govern. And third, you must utilize your strengths to create a few memorable big wins.

The first challenge may be the hardest. Your current team was set up to win the election not for governing. You can hardly be expected to work with people you cannot respect and don’t respect you, but you don’t want sycophants or usurpers either. One of your few honest campaign goals was to be an outsider, so you have to fight through the murk of Washington insiders to find some effective people. Finally, you have somehow landed at the head of a party of unprincipled people with no discernable policy beyond greed and a few freaky social views you disagree with.

This is tricky, so expect it to take time and have a number of iterations. A few loyal lieutenants will have to do for now, but expect the next year or two to be full of surprise appointments and sackings. It will be a bit like The Apprentice, actually! A tough one will be Supreme Court Justices, because you can’t sack those and they stay for life. Those pesky Republicans will demand social conservatives, but your heart is not there. Why not follow a tried and tested principle and just select on merit? Now, that would burnish the legacy nicely!

The second challenge is about space to govern, and here the campaign has created a problem, associating you with white supremacists and various other undesirables. During the campaign these folk were helpful, but now they jeopardize the whole operation. There are bound to be riots and shootings and all sorts of events, and you have to come across as measured and inclusive. You recognize this and your language has changed already. Perhaps Twitter will have to be a bit more filtered too – what a shame, tweeting is fun!

Then the third challenge is legacy projects. Your unique skills are as a dealmaker and as an outsider, and there are many areas where you can apply these. Those lemmings in congress will accept things from you that they would never consider from anyone else.

The most promising area is domestic economics, where congress has been deferring key issues for years. You can be the one to make tax increases acceptable to Republicans again, as part of a package to stimulate the economy, fix corporate taxes and make pensions and entitlements affordable once more. Immigration is another area requiring reform, and on this one you can even pay homage to your campaign, being tough on some illegals and even challenging the birth rule but at the same time opening the country to the talent it needs. In healthcare, you have already realized the Obamacare moves in the right direction, but you can do deals to make it affordable by attacking spiraling costs. Lastly, there is the possibility of some electoral reform to defang the lobbyists and moneymen.

Foreign affairs are more risky and you will have to surround yourself with wise heads to avoid your temperament getting the better of you, but here there are deals to be done too. You know your own trade rhetoric to be pretty empty, but at least you have now set up a good negotiating position, and maybe you can do something similar on climate change. There is scope for a generational agreement with China that would also remove the threat from North Korea. And what about the Middle East? As a rare president not dependent on donations, might you be the one brave enough to speak some tough truths to Israel?

Much of the world is despairing about your presidency, but that is because they have not worked you out. They listen to your rhetoric rather than thinking about your motivations and strengths. You’ll certainly need some luck, and to calm some of your instincts, but over time you have a chance to assemble a team of strong outsiders and to forge a fantastic legacy. Think about it – you might even earn some grudging respect. Go for it, Donald.