Dolly Parton's platform

0:00What did the President of the United States have to say upon learning of Dolly Parton's death on Tuesday? Truth Social. There has never been anyone like her and never will. In her honor, I am lowering the American flag throughout the United States for a one-week period beginning tonight at 6 p.m. Rest in peace, Dolly. The world loves you. President Donald J. Trump. Two and a half hours later, the Democratic Socialists of America tweeted, Democratic Socialists of America extends our deepest condolences to the family, friends and fans of Dolly Parton, a hero of the working class and an inspiration to us all.

0:45Some people took Trump in the DSA agreeing on Dolly to mean that she was apolitical. But on Today Explained from Vox, the truth is Dolly was just better at politics than just about any singer, actor, or politician you can think of. Support for Today Explained comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Anthropic is a public benefit corporation founded on a hard question. That question is, how do we make sure AI goes well for people? They're working on it, publishing what they find, even when it's uncomfortable. There's hope in hard questions. Ask your hard question at claude.ai. slash Today Explained.

1:23That's C-L-A-U-D-E dot A-I slash Today Explained. Hey, it's Sue Bird. This week on Bird's Eye View, I'm joined by Bridget Carlton of the Portland Fire. We get into how it's been adapting to Alex Sarama's coaching style, transitioning from role player to franchise anchor, and what she's most proud of from the Fire's first season, an expansion team. Check out this week's Bird's Eye View on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.

1:56Today Explained. Marissa Armas. I'm a senior writer at Rolling Stone. And Marissa, when you see the Democratic Socialists of America memorializing Dolly Parton at the same time as President Donald Trump is doing so, what do you think? A lot of people are saying like, oh, this is proof that, you know, she wasn't political. But is that the same thing you see? I mean, I always go back to thinking of Dolly Parton as a songwriter. And she loved words. She was a master of words. Your smile is like a breath of spring. Your voice is soft like summer rain. And I cannot compete with you, Jolene. So she knew how to use words both in her songs and both in her public speech and how she communicated to the world.

2:43The question is, if you could tell teenagers of America today one thing, whether it be advice or something of support, what would it be? I would say, act like it's raining every day and wear your rubbers. And she didn't like certain words. She didn't like political words or partisan words or words like feminist. Do you see yourself as a feminist? No, I'm feminine. I see myself as a female. I always like to be a good example. I don't feel I have to march in the streets to say I'm a woman or I have this and that. But that didn't mean that she didn't do any of those things. She just refrained from using those words.

3:23And she knew that, that people could sort of make whatever, if you didn't call it politics, then they could do whatever they wanted with that information and file it in whatever category you're supposed to classify those actions in. Could you tell us a little bit more about what Dolly quietly accomplished for various groups and or causes without managing to scare off either side of her fan base? Yeah, I mean, I think there's the actions that we all know about, which is sending millions of books to kids worldwide. If you have a child under five, you can sign up and you can get books for free. I asked my dad to help me start this little program called the Imagination Library, where we give books to children.

4:09From the time they're born, they get a book once a month, and it goes to their house with their little name on it. I have two kids. I got all of Jolly's books. It was incredible. They're some of our favorite books. The little train rumbled over the tracks. She was a happy little train, for she had such a jolly load to carry. Her cars were filled full of good things for boys and girls. She funded the COVID vaccine. I think she donated a million dollars to vaccine research. Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine. I'm begging of you, please don't hesitate. When I went and got my vaccine, I wore a cold shoulder sweater, just like Dolly did when she got her vaccine.

4:50Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine. because once you're dead, then that's a bit too late. But then she also, I think just a couple months ago, announced that she was launching her own Dolly program at an East Tennessee hospital. I've always believed that every child deserves a fair chance to grow up healthy, hopeful, and surrounded with love. So she was a health care advocate, extremely vocal ally to the LGBTQ community. We are who we are. If you're gay, you're gay. If you're straight, you're straight. And you should be allowed to be how you are and who you are. To people in her native Appalachia.

5:33Most of my people were not that educated, but they are very, very intelligent. Good common sense, horse sense, we called it. Spoken about Black Lives Matter. She said, And of course, Black Lives Matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? But beyond that, she did a lot of work that we didn't see out in public all the time. My favorite example of quieter Dolly work is that After I Will Always Love You came out, which of course was a song that she wrote that Whitney Houston made famous in the Bodyguard soundtrack. I will always love you I thought it was the most unbelievable thing I'd ever heard.

6:19I'd never even believed my little song could be done like that. People say, well, she claims it's her record. I said, it is her record. It's my song, but it's most definitely her record. It didn't sound like that when I had it. She made me rich. And then she obviously profited a lot in royalties from it because she was the only writer on the song. And she bought, I think it was a commercial office space and reinvested it into the Black community in Nashville. She said it was the house that Whitney built. I think that's really cool. And you see all kinds of Dolly stories like that, where people will be like, oh, you know what she actually did with that money or in that moment?

7:00So it was the ways that you saw it and the ways that kind of buzzed in the background. It's smart, you know? It feels like such a savvy political move to embrace a bunch of social causes, but to frame it apart from our divisive politics and to not use the political buzzwords of the day to do it. And she did this over decades. How did she figure out how to do it? Whose playbook was she emulating or did she make up her own? I mean, yeah, you're exactly right. This isn't just a recent thing as things have been so polarized with social media. She's been doing this forever. It's kind of amazing to go back and watch clips of people try to dig something out of her.

7:44You have a president of the United States who said those things on that bus. I'm not addressing that. I do not get into that. Of course, I have my opinion about everybody and everything. But I learned a long time ago, keep your damn mouth shut if you want to stay in show business. I'm not in politics. I'm an entertainer. And yet you're also a role model. Yes, I am. That's why I don't talk about people. She'll never break. But I think it's Dolly's playbook. And I think she's coming from a place of she knows that people like her from the South, from Appalachia, from the country are completely misunderstood, stereotyped.

8:24You know, and there's a lot of people that don't feel, as we know, represented in either party that feel frustrated with both. And I think she spoke to that, too. But she was never out there endorsing any kind of candidate or anything like that, although I do think one time she did say, I think it would be cool if there was a woman president when Hillary Clinton was running. Oh, well, I think that's wonderful that we've got to that place. I mean, I think it would be great, whether it's Hillary or some other woman somewhere, you know, down the road. I think it's wonderful that because women are smart.

8:58Women are good. I mean, we've always been smart. That was, you know, as far in as she's ever gone. And so we don't know at the end of the day if she was ever voting for one side or the other. We don't know. I mean, you can look like you could take down all the things that she believed in and all the things that she did and probably make an educated guess. I mean, she never put her name behind a candidate. She just didn't. So Dolly didn't just refuse to ever endorse any actual politicians, but she also sort of rebuffed endorsements from politicians. Could you tell us how she did that over the course of her career?

9:39Sure, yeah. I mean, I think she never wanted to take accolades from a political party. She never wanted to be claimed by a political party or a political figure. I've seen a lot of people reference the time when she rejected receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom during Trump's administration and using that to prove, oh, OK, she was anti-Trump, but she also rejected it when Biden was president. So she didn't want that from anyone in politics. And she also refused a statue from the Tennessee state legislature? She did. It was in 2021 and there was, you know, a big rally to erect this Dolly Parton statue and she didn't want it.

10:22She didn't want that moment in such like a fiery, difficult moment in our culture, did not want to have a statue erected if her. And I think she did say in one of the quotes, she's like, sure, at one point in the future, if you want to, like, you know, have a statue of me when things are a little more chilled out, like, sure, go ahead. But not right now. And so she always could have that great sense to get ahead of something that might place her in one category or the other, which is so interesting. You know, when we're talking about politics, we're often talking about power. And I wonder what Dali understood about power and her relationship with it.

11:06Because obviously by focusing on these issues that she cared most about, be it childhood literacy or equality for LGBTQ people or for women or whatever it might be, she wielded a lot more power by not getting in the political fights, right? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think she innately understood that. But she always seemed to kind of innately understand the moves that she had to do to preserve that power in the best way. And I think that comes even from early on of her experience, you know, being a woman in Nashville in these days where that was not an easy thing to do, still isn't an easy thing to do.

11:56But, you know, understanding as a woman in country music, in entertainment, that she was always going to be working in a deficit and what she could do to reclaim those moments for herself. And yet, I don't know, it like worked so well for Dolly that you think other people would be like, oh, I'm going to follow the Dolly Parton playbook. Do you see it? Do you see anyone pulling it off in any way, shape, or form? Yeah, it's funny. I mean, I was driving around yesterday, and as you usually do when you drive around Nashville, and I'm sure other places, you see cars. And I saw two yesterday. I probably see more on a daily basis but didn't notice as much with Dolly for President stickers.

12:45They're very common around here. But I do think it taps into a certain kind of sentiment that, yes, there's entertainers that could take up that role, but it feels like maybe some politicians themselves could learn a little bit from Dolly. I feel like it's flipped in our current political climate to where the emphasis is on claiming the words but then providing no action. Dolly was all provide action but don't worry too much about the words. Don't claim the words. And just in terms of being such a uniting figure and making it. And I don't mean to say that in a way that I think people should be neutral.

13:27And I don't think Dolly wanted people to be neutral either. I think there's a reframing of these issues as issues of humanity and issues of love and even issues of if you're a person of faith. She really repeatedly said, you know, we're all God's children. Well, if you're the fine Christian that you think you are, why are you judging people? Why are you—that's God's job. We're not God. We're not judges. You know, we're supposed to love one another. We're supposed to not judge, and we're not supposed to take vengeance on other people. That's God's job. So I got too much to do on my own trying to do God's work, too.

14:09I think if a politician could learn from that, that might be a little helpful.

14:22It'd also be helpful for other musicians and celebrities. Or was this just a Dolly thing? We're going to ask when Today Explained returns.

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17:54Here you come again. Looking better than a body has a right to. They explained. Judy Kurtz, I'm the Hill's In the Know columnist. That means I cover the intersection of Hollywood and politics, features, everything in between. So we just spent the first half of the show, Judy, talking to Rolling Stone Marissa about Dolly Parton's politics, which were, you know, maybe not well known, but the more you dig, the more you discover. But she had this uncanny ability to sort of stay above the fray in American politics. Do you think that was sort of a singular ability that she had? Well, it certainly was an astounding ability, especially in today's age, where if you're a celebrity, there's an expectation almost among the public that you're going to pick a political side.

18:53You really can't stay quiet anymore about politics. And that's something that Dolly Parton did so well, but she did it in her trademark wit kind of way. It was almost a disarming way of she would make a joke, a punchline out of being asked about politics, she would say. My daddy was a Republican, my mama was a Democrat, and I'm a hypocrite. She would really disarm the interviewer and play this kind of dumb blonde persona. Certainly she was not a dumb blonde. It was a really smart way of shielding herself from political questions. What examples do you think of when you think of a celebrity sort of being asked to weigh in and either, like, having to against their will or trying to avoid it and may be failing?

19:42Well, Taylor Swift is kind of a classic example of someone who almost throughout her entire career, the first 20 years of it or so, she tried her best to stay out of the political fray. And she was largely successful. She didn't really talk politics at all. But then she was compelled to get involved in politics when there was an election going on, a midterm election in her home state of Tennessee. So that was kind of like dipping her toe in the political waters. And then, of course, she spoke out some more in the documentary that she released. She was critical of President Trump. If I get bad press for saying don't put a homophobic racist in office, then I get bad press for that.

20:29And then she, of course, famously did an almost last minute endorsement of Vice President Harris during the 2024 election. So she's someone who wasn't politically involved and caught some criticism for not weighing in on certain political issues. And she ultimately decided to get political. But we've seen celebrities go the other way as well. Jennifer Lawrence is a pretty good example of a celebrity who was vocal, outspoken about her politics for years and years, well before the 2020 election. And then she supported Vice President Harris in 2024. But in an interview after the 2024 White House race, she said that as we've learned election after election, celebrities do not make a difference whatsoever on who people vote for.

21:32And so then what am I doing? I'm just sharing my opinion on something that's going to just add fuel to a fire that's ripping the country apart. So she is one of those celebrities who was vocal in the past, but is questioning whether she should be vocal in the future. Dwayne Johnson, The Rock, is one of them. He actually wasn't that political for most of his career. He made his first presidential endorsement, public endorsement for Joe Biden back in 2020. I do feel that Vice President Biden and Senator Harris are the best choice to lead our country, and I am endorsing them to become president and vice president of our United States.

22:14He's floated his own potential White House bid a couple of times before. But he said in a recent interview that he's going to zip it when it comes to politics, that he doesn't really want to weigh in anymore, that he doesn't like the mudslinging of politics. I interviewed Paris Hilton earlier this year, who's very active on Capitol Hill. She's frequently in Washington pushing for various causes among lawmakers. But she told me she doesn't want to weigh in on politics either. When I asked her about the 2020 White House race, she said, I feel that politics is something I feel like celebrities should not be discussing.

22:56I don't want to ever like weigh anyone's decision based on that. So I don't really get into that.

23:06So we've seen examples of celebrities, you know, sort of being cajoled into weighing in. We've seen certainly examples of celebrities saying, I don't want to weigh in. We've also seen something in the middle, like recently, Casey Musgraves, another country star, asked her audience to donate to a nonprofit that helps children separated from their deported parents. And she said it was not a political thing, that these kids just needed help. And apparently that inflamed some MAGA people out there. Is it hard for celebrities to sort of walk the line between a cause and politics the way Dolly was really able to do?

23:51Yeah, she certainly had a unique ability to be able to deflect questions about politics by creating a punchline when asked about politics in a way that today's celebrities have a really tough time doing. But I do think with Kacey Musgraves, we're seeing a shift maybe going forward with celebrities who might, rather than align themselves with certain candidates, choose to align themselves with certain policies and feel that they can be more effective with policy making decisions and aligning themselves and giving their support to different policies, particularly ones where they have a personal connection.

24:33And that kind of relates back to Dolly Parton as well. Of course, she started the Imagination Library back in 1995 to give books to kids across the nation and across the world. But she had a personal connection to that issue, and that was that her father was illiterate. So I felt like I was bringing honor to my dad. He got to live long enough to see it doing well and work with me when it was still doing well. And he just loved being part of that, and he took such pride in it. And that gave me such pride in myself that I could do that for my daddy. And I think celebrities going forward, when it comes to politics, they really need to have a personal connection to these issues that they're touting.

25:14So it doesn't just seem like an out-of-touch Hollywood star is cozying up to a politician. I mean, yeah, that's the thing I guess that separates Dolly is that she really cared about a host of issues and for decades pursued them. And I guess that just isn't true for a lot of artists. Is that the reason you think she was able to continue to do so in what seems like an era where it's hard for celebrities to remain above the political fray? Because, you know, she was taking a position on vaccines in a time where vaccines had become controversial. Yeah, I think Dolly was also from a different generation of celebrity.

26:02You kind of let her off the hook with political questions and questions about her politics in general. But I think in general, Hollywood is never going to go completely silent when it comes to politics. But I think that some stars are opting to instead turn down the volume. One area the stars have found real effectiveness is in fundraising. And politicians certainly aren't going to turn down the idea of having a big Hollywood celebrity hit the fundraising campaign trail for them going forward. We're not going to see those go away anytime soon. No. What does that mean, that we'll always look to celebrities for political endorsements or we'll always want to know what their positions are?

26:54I think that's right. And maybe I have just a little bit of a bias in this area since I cover the intersection of Hollywood and politics.