Politics & Power Quote by Ricardo Montalban

Montalban’s complaint lands because it comes from an actor who spent a lifetime embodying ideals on screen while watching the real version get uglier off it. He isn’t pretending politics was ever a monastery; he’s naming the moment when it starts feeling like a franchise war. “Too partisan” is mild language for a sharper suspicion: that party identity has become the main character, and the country is reduced to set dressing.

The key move is how he defines patriotism in relational terms: “honor and love... your brothers and sisters.” That’s not flag-waving but kinship, a civic family. It’s also a subtle rebuke to the kind of patriotism that’s mostly performance - decals, slogans, public scolding - with little obligation to the people living under the same roof. By framing compatriots as siblings, he quietly shifts patriotism from rhetoric to responsibility: you don’t get to “love your country” while treating half the country as disposable.

His “impression” matters, too. It signals someone speaking as a citizen, not a policy priest. That plainspoken stance is part of the appeal: he’s articulating what many people sense in their bones when governance feels like scoreboard politics. In the late 20th century, as media ecosystems sharpened incentives to polarize, “good for the party” became a career strategy. Montalban’s line reads as both lament and warning: when loyalty migrates from the shared project to the team jersey, patriotism becomes a prop - and the plot turns mean.