The Folk Entertainer talks about respecting the audience--the reality is, in the US at least,
folk audiences tended to be strongly connected with the Civil Rights Movement, The Anti-War Movement, and the Labor Movement. All three of these extremely political movements used folk music, and songs based on folk music, as organizing tools and to create solidarity among it's members. There's even a song about it. That's the core audience.

If someone wants to talk about the truth about folk music, that would be the place to start.