BO jumped on the "Pod Save America" podcast Friday and laid it out, Bill Maher style ... "My family, my kids, work that gives me satisfaction, having fun," Obama said. "Hell, not being a buzzkill. And sometimes Democrats are."

He went on ... "Sometimes people just want to not feel as if they are walking on eggshells, and they want some acknowledgment that life is messy and that all of us, at any given moment, can say things the wrong way, make mistakes."

Obama says he knows why cancel culture has gained traction, and clearly thinks it needs to stop if Dems want to win elections ... "I think where we get into trouble sometimes is where we try to suggest that some groups are more – because they historically have been victimized more – that somehow they have a status that’s different than other people and we’re going around scolding folks if they don’t use exactly the right phrase. Or that identity politics becomes the principle lens through which we view our various political challenges."

He also thinks his party and he himself has gotten mired in what he calls "policy gobbledygook." ... "That’s not how people think about these issues. They think about them in terms of the life I’m leading day to day. How does politics, how is it even relevant to the things that I care the most deeply about?"

Obama will be stumping for Democratic candidates in Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin.