Wealth & Money Quote by Victoria Jackson

There is a sly moral line-drawing hiding inside a throwaway laugh. Jackson opens with a disarming disclaimer - "I don't mind" - as if she is granting herself permission, or asking the audience to. That small phrase does a lot of work: it frames the joke not as cruelty but as civic hygiene. She is not mocking faith; she is policing a particular kind of religious authority that treats belief like a billing system.

The target is carefully narrowed: not preachers, but "those preachers who steal money from people". The specificity is strategic, because it lets a comedian touch a culturally protected institution without tripping the audience's reflexive defensiveness. It's also an old American pressure point. Televangelist scandals, prosperity-gospel hustling, and the recurring headline of a pastor with a private jet have trained audiences to see a subset of religious leaders as performers with a donation button. Jackson's phrasing assumes that shared background; she doesn't need to name a denomination or cite a case. The crowd already has an image.

"they kind of deserve it" is the wink and the bite. "Kind of" softens the verdict just enough to keep the tone playful, but the subtext is punitive: ridicule becomes a form of accountability when formal accountability fails. The joke smuggles in a populist ethic - if you exploit people's hope, you lose your right to be treated delicately - and invites the audience to feel both righteous and entertained. Comedy here isn't rebellion against religion; it's suspicion of power wearing a collar.