Former President Barack Obama came off the sidelines Friday to criticize the actions of his successor, President Donald Trump, and to bolster the chances that that his party, the Democrats, will take control of Congress in November.

Republicans and their defenders in the media reacted with shock, dismay and disappointment.

Give us a break.

Their argument is that Obama is violating some sacred precedent in which a former president is not supposed to speak ill of his successor.

“It was very disappointing to see President Obama break with the tradition of former presidents,” said Vice President Mike Pence, summoning up his most somber of deliveries.

This from a party who took the unprecedented action of keeping a Supreme Court seat open for a year to deny the duly elected president — Obama — the ability to make the appointment.

This in defense of a president who, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, challenged Obama’s legitimacy with a conspiratorial theory that he was not a U.S. citizen. Who in office has not been satisfied with working to undo Obama’s policy achievements, but has personally criticized and attacked him about his relationship with Russia (Obama “didn’t have the energy or chemistry” to form a bond with Vladimir Putin, Trump tweeted), over the Iran deal, and even blaming the last president for Trump’s cancellation of a trip to London.

“Reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for ‘peanuts,’” he tweeted in January 2018.

Unlike other presidents, who at least try to present the image of being the leader of all Americans, Trump has continued with his campaign-style rallies, using his us-against-them rhetoric, with Obama a sometime foil.

Republicans are in the thinnest of glass houses in decrying Obama for a breach of protocol.

The former president kept quiet for most of Trump’s first two years in office, but it is election time and, as he said in Urbana, Ill., “The stakes really are higher. The consequences of us sitting on the sidelines are more dire.”

Obama hit Trump for pressuring his FBI director to go after political opponents and protect his own party, for pursuing a politics of fear, and for the dysfunction in his White House. These are not small things.

So skip the hand-wringing and engage the debate.

The Day editorial board meets with political, business and community leaders to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Timothy Dwyer, Executive Editor Izaskun E. Larraneta, Owen Poole, copy editor, and Lisa McGinley, retired deputy managing editor. The board operates independently from The Day newsroom.