During an interview with CNN’s “Axe Files” podcast released on Thursday, former President Barack Obama stated that while he thinks some things get improperly labeled as “woke,” progressives do sometimes go after reporters for “asking questions that don’t fit the accepted narrative or are inconvenient for progressives” or for “pointing out facts that don’t fit the neat narrative” that progressives want to push.
Obama said, [relevant remarks begin around 47:00] “I think that we have tended, at times, on the progressive side to tip into kind of a scolding social etiquette police and virtue signaling whereby somebody doesn’t say something exactly the right way, even if we all know they kind of didn’t mean it in an offensive way, and suddenly you’ve got — partly because of social media — everybody jumping on them and saying, somehow, oh, you must be racist or sexist. I think there have been times where reporters are asking questions that don’t fit the accepted narrative or are inconvenient for progressives around certain issues and just by raising the question or pointing out facts that don’t fit the neat narrative, we’ll jump on them and say, why are you aiding those who are attacking us?”
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