The moment that the world found out that Dolly Parton had died, I was in a hair salon in the reddest congressional district in New York state. The neighborhood on the shore of Lake Erie where I move every summer voted solidly for Donald Trump in 2024.
I often pass a lawn sign that has something misogynistic to say about New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, and the mere mention of Kamala Harris’s name can bring derisive jokes. Of course, there certainly are liberals and independents to be found, but on balance the area leans right.
On my errands around town, I’ve heard scornful comments about transgender people, and the local Catholic church where I sometimes attend mass has a priest who, during a homily this summer, praised Trump for his war in Iran.
A lot of the people I’ve chatted with around town are outspoken about being anti-vaccine.
But when cellphones started pinging with the news about Dolly, it’s not overstating things to say that everybody was devastated. Stylists and customers alike seemed to feel a personal connection – to her music, to her philanthropy, to her sheer goodness.
How did Dolly, a rags-to-riches country music superstar with a Tennessee twang and bedazzled everything, manage to endear herself to Americans of every political stripe?
What was her secret – and does it hold some wisdom for the those who seek unity in this divided nation, who appreciate civility, who believe there’s an American ethos that transcends our ugly politics?
Some of it, surely, was that she had a gift for poking fun at herself, and joining in the laughter, as when she would say she didn’t mind being called a dumb blonde because she knew, after all, that she wasn’t dumb – and that she wasn’t a blonde. After her illness made headlines last year, she took to social media to make a simple point: “I ain’t dead yet.” She called herself a “Backwoods Barbie” in a song of that name.
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Then there was her remarkable generosity. Her organization, Imagination Library, gave more than 330m books to children around the world. She founded it, in part, she said, because her father couldn’t read or write.
She never forgot where she came from, as she raised money for a new hospital in her home country in Tennessee, or offered $500 awards to local teenagers when they graduated from high school.
Still, how did she manage not to alienate the Maga world when she promoted the Covid-19 vaccine (the research for which she had helped fund)?
Again, the humor helped, as when she changed the words of one of her most famous songs, Jolene to something that rhymed, and sang “vaccine, vaccine” in promotional videos. You had to smile, and maybe decide to get the jab, or at least to tolerate those who did. And she never made it political.
“She practiced a unique brand of radical acceptance,” wrote Jad Abumrad in a New York Times essay this week. “No one would ever be thrown out of the Big Dolly Tent.”
And, though she is being mourned as something of an angel on earth, she was a razor-sharp businessperson. She was smart and savvy about it all, as befitted the superstar who chalked up 25 No 1 country singles over the years.
As Abumrad learned while interviewing and observing her at length as he created the podcast Dolly Parton’s America, she always told her own story.
“If a male talkshow host made a joke about her figure, she’d make an ever better joke about it. She was always two steps ahead of you. She never allowed herself to be a part of a story of which she was not the author.”
Can what Dolly Parton did be bottled somehow? Can her serendipitous mixture of humor, humility and humanity be sprinkled over our troubled waters to calm and soothe them?
Probably not – there is only one Dolly Parton – but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn something from this rare individual.
The rest of us might channel Dolly a bit more, and remember that a self-deprecating joke goes a long way toward easing tensions. We might recognize that financial success need not turn into ego glorification or arrogance.
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And most of all, we might keep in mind that genuine generosity – if it comes from the heart – has the power to transcend politics.
Dolly Parton’s legacy, of course, resides in her wonderful songs, from Coat of Many Colors to 9 to 5. That’s what she would want.
But I don’t think she’d object if we also kept in mind her authentic kindness, her disarming wit – and the “radical acceptance” that fueled it all.
