Surely you’ve heard of Internet trolls, those hardy souls who live to bait others into losing their cool and saying something stupid in response on social media. Trolling has long since transcended its roots in the anonymous content sections of websites to become a standing element of our political life.

And on Tuesday morning, boosted by an approval rating well over 50 percent, Barack Obama became one of the great trolls of our time.

In a statement in which he flatly declared Trump “unfit to be the president,” Obama then turned to senior Republicans and their efforts to distance themselves from Trump’s series of personal insults and his policy extremism.

“This isn’t a situation where you have an episodic gaffe,” Obama said of the former reality TV star’s political missteps. “This is daily and weekly, where they are distancing themselves from statements he’s making. There has to be a point at which you say, ‘This is not somebody I can support for president of the United States, even if he purports to be a member of my party.’ The fact that that has not yet happened makes some of these denunciations ring hollow.”

Consider the complex calculation Obama has made here.

No one in the GOP will dare follow the prescription he has suggested in his remarks — precisely because he’s the one making the suggestion.

Indeed, if House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were in fact thinking at all seriously about withdrawing their endorsements of Trump, they could not possibly do so now.

They would not appear to be retracting their endorsements out of principle but rather in craven capitulation to the Democratic president who is trying to get his Democratic successor elected.

And he knows it. He isn’t calling on them to do the right thing. He’s wrapping Trump around them and the GOP like a boa constrictor in hopes that the party’s leader is going to cut off the circulation to the party’s body and leave it suffocated, bloodless and dead.

The minute that Trump went disgracefully ballistic on Gold Star parents Khzir and Ghazala Khan, the horrified response was genuine—and the political response practically wrote itself. Initially genuine, the outrage at Trump soon morphed into a all-front tactical onslaught once it became clear the GOP nominee wasn’t going to back down and would, in fact, double down.

Suddenly it became a matter of great moment to Democrats and liberals in the media and on Twitter just what Ryan and McConnell should do in response — oh, you know, for their own good.

It’s no accident, as they say, that Obama made this statement on the very day the New York Times editorial page called on senior Republicans to withdraw their endorsements of Trump. Or that both Obama and the Times are following in the footsteps of Democrats and liberals all over the media and Twitter who have suddenly turned into sober counselors of reason for conservative politicians they customarily despise.

As Nicholas Confessore, a reporter at the New York Times who cut his teeth working for left journals of opinion, tweeted on Tuesday, “There are an awful lot of liberals out there these days consumed with concern for whether the GOP stands up for its own principles.”

And not just professional liberals, but the mainstream media (but I repeat myself).

At yesterday’s press availability, Obama specifically sought out CBS’s Margaret Brennan for the first question. Here’s what Brennan asked: “Given the Republican nominee’s recent comments about the Khan family and his statement that he would consider recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea, does it make you question his fitness to be president?”

Brennan teed it up exactly where Obama wanted it. What a coincidence.

Look, Trump brought this upon himself, and it looks like if he goes down he’s going to do his best to bring Ryan and McConnell down with him. In that respect, he is Obama’s servant right now.

The troll has been out-trolled.

I don’t say this out of admiration for Barack Obama as a policymaker or as a serious-minded public servant but as a partisan political operative. I am a conservative who despises what Obama has done as president.

But even a Yankees fan must grudgingly acknowledge the skill of Big Papi when he crushes a homer against your team.