Politics & Power Quote by Rich Little

Rich Little’s honesty is almost a tell: the safest way to survive in the comedy business is to admit you’re not trying to be dangerous. By separating “political satirist” from “mannerisms and the personality,” he’s drawing a bright line between two modes of humor that audiences often blur together. Satire claims an argument; impersonation claims a performance. Little is staking his territory in the latter, where the laugh comes from recognition and craft, not from ideological heat.

The subtext is pragmatic and a little defensive. Political satire implies a point of view, and in the U.S. that usually means picking a side, risking backlash, and aging rapidly as the news cycle mutates. Little’s era rewarded the opposite: late-night TV and Vegas stages where broad consensus comedy paid the bills. You could imitate Nixon’s jowls or Reagan’s cadence without interrogating policy, and the audience could enjoy the caricature without feeling indicted. “I don’t kid myself” isn’t false modesty; it’s brand management, a refusal of the moral pedestal that “satirist” can confer.

Context matters: Little came up when impressionists were mass-media interpreters, translating powerful men into digestible tics for a national audience. His line quietly argues that personality is politics’ real export anyway. If the public consumes leaders as vibes and voice, then the impersonator isn’t dodging politics so much as revealing what politics has become: theater with better lighting.