Obama lays into 'politically woke' call-out culture
Former President Barack Obama offers words of wisdom to activists and candidates; Peter Doocy reports from Concord, New Hampshire.
If viewers get their news from the broadcast networks, then they would not have known about the recent remarks former President Barack Obama made about the "woke" cancel culture that has plagued society, at least according to a new study.
The Media Research Center found that ABC News, CBS News and NBC News all ignored Obama's remarks on their signature morning and evening news programs Wednesday. Much of the coverage was dedicated to the latest developments in the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
During a discussion at the Obama Foundation Summit held at the Illinois Institute of Technology on Tuesday, the 44th president explained that the world was more complicated than people realized, and he urged politically active Americans to be practical if they wanted to be effective.
“This idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're always politically woke, and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly,” Obama said. “The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you.”
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The blunt remarks essentially were an expanded version of a saying Obama often employed while in office -- don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The comments Tuesday showed the ex-president embracing the image of a practical elder statesman at a time when his party has been drifting ever-leftward -- essentially urging young party activists to reconsider a culture of calling out those who ran afoul of their worldviews, whether in the language they used or the policies they espoused.
Obama also suggested young people were focusing more on casting judgment on others than advancing positive change.
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“One danger I see among young people, particularly on college campuses,” he continued, “I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people -- and this is accelerated by social media – there is this sense sometimes of the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people, and that’s enough. Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or use the wrong verb, then I can feel pretty good about myself, ‘cause man, did you see how woke I was? I called you out.'
“That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.”
Fox News' Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.