Fox Corp. and News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch announced Thursday that he has decided to “transition to the role of Chairman Emeritus at Fox and News” and pass the chairmanship of those companies to his older son and longtime corporate heir, Lachlan Murdoch. It’s unclear what that “transition” will look like in practice — the statement stresses Murdoch’s intention to remain fully involved in the companies’ operations in his new role. The 92-year-old seems to have engineered a scenario in which he gets to read his obituaries before he dies.

So here’s mine: Murdoch’s legacy is making billions creating a global right-wing media empire that empowered radical authoritarian conspiracy theorists. In America, the institutions he built and the demagogues he employed played essential roles in every aspect of Donald Trump’s rise to and retention of power within the Republican Party.