Ever since he announced his retirement in April, Speaker Paul Ryan has largely avoided the limelight, emerging now and then to repel another far-right rebellion in the House or gently criticize President Donald Trump over the latest outrage (such as opposing birthright citizenship). Mostly, Ryan has tried to steer clear of Trump, with whom he has clashed and whose presidency many believe convinced Ryan to retire. Asked by CBS News’ John Dickerson last week if Trump practices “inclusive politics which tries to unify,” Ryan shrugged. “Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t,” he said.

You get the sense that, with his political career winding down, Ryan just wants it all to be over. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t thinking about his legacy.

Pressed on his accomplishments back in April, Ryan was modest: “I think we’ve achieved a heck of a lot.... I like to think I’ve done my part, my little part in history to set us on a better course.” That’s as much of a self-assessment as he’ll allow—at least until he signs a hefty book deal with Crown Forum. But on Friday, Ryan published an op-ed in the Washington Examiner that, though ostensibly about turning out GOP voters in Tuesday’s midterm elections, doubled as a political obituary.

It’s a fascinating document, springing from a kind of funhouse-mirror world of Republican politics—one in which Ryan’s disingenuous brand of think tank conservatism has won out over Trump’s demagogic dog whistles, and where Republican congressmen are running for re-election on the roaring economy rather than a caravan of migrant asylum-seekers. It’s also an attempt to launder his legacy, by claiming undue credit for the state of the economy and implicitly justifying the Republican Party’s submission—especially his own—to Donald Trump.

Trump’s name does not appear in Ryan’s op-ed, which is fitting given that Ryan has gone to great lengths to avoid uttering it and often professes ignorance of Trump’s latest offenses. But the absence, while part of a longstanding pattern, suggests wishful thinking on Ryan’s part—and lends an unreality to the article, as if it were being published during a very different election. “When House Republicans campaigned in 2016, we made the American people a promise,” Ryan began. “We said that if voters placed their confidence in us and entrusted us with a mandate to govern, we would lead on the tough issues and improve people’s lives with our ideas.”