Rick Perlstein Quotes

I'm not consumed with political machinations.

There is a temptation in politics to look for simplistic slogans and to play the game in a way that looks like you're a savvy politician.

Common sense is no match for political opportunism.

You have to be a demagogue on a lot of little things if you want to be around to have your way on the big things.

There are little games that go on in politics.

I'm not into political gamesmanship.

The art of politics consists in knowing precisely when it is necessary to hit an opponent slightly below the belt.

I've gotten to believe it's more fun to play politicians than actually be them.

I'm not clever enough to be in machinations and real politics.

I can talk a lot and not reveal anything; I would make a great politician.

I think most of America is seeing the strings behind the campaign, and sees the crass political maneuvers that people are making. I mean, they're extremely apparent to me.

I was attracted and repelled by what I saw of politics in my father's house. Attracted by the adventure, the opportunity. Repelled by the grasping, the artificiality, the obvious manipulation and role-playing, the repetition of emotion without feeling, particularly that: the repetition of emotion.

The “cant” of the politician, like the cant of the “religious” man, is also protean in its guise, but its chief method is to explain away words. The politician can always show you that he didn’t mean what he says, but something rather different from what he says. Political cant consists in pretending to agreement with hearers, whoever they may be. This cant is part of the stock-in-trade of every politician, be he Tory, Whig, or Radical, and it is by its means that he tries to haul in stray votes.

By exploiting envy and fear, politicians can portray themselves as the saviors and protectors of the public — doing and saying whatever is necessary to gain the support needed to remain in power.

Politics, so far as mobilizing support is concerned, represents the art of calculated cheating, or more precisely how to cheat without being really caught

I'm interested in people that can say one thing and have completely different motives behind that.

Reagan conspired in the underestimation of his own ability.

I don't play politics.

While the Obama White House is completely incompetent and weak, they know how to spin everyday Americans.

Politicians pretend not to be smart.

This is real. This is the real mad man theory. We have to be irrational and vindictive, so people don't know what we're up to. This is not [Donald] Trump and [Steve] Bannon, it's from the [Bill] Clinton era.

I have no doubt that the Congress is active in manipulative politics.

The opportunism of electoral politics makes people lie to each other.

They want to deceive their people first because now they are in a very shabby situation

We have to look at our history and realize that if they pretend to be our friend it's because they've got something up their sleeve.