If you were a fan of Dolly the singer/songwriter/musician or Dolly the extraordinary human being—or both—there’s nothing I can tell you about her that you don’t already know. She was truly an astounding combination of talent and compassion. We are truly enriched by the mark she left on American life and we are truly diminished by her passing.
The huge and genuine outpouring of grief and appreciation for Dolly that began on Tuesday afternoon is sticking squarely in MAGA’s craw. Now they are trying to blend in with the rest of us. Even President Grievance decided he was a Dolly fan:
Just a quick reminder:
Flags will be flown at full-staff on Jan. 20 for Donald Trump’s inauguration as president, despite an order from President Biden to lower the flags to half-staff in remembrance of the late President Jimmy Carter.
I mean there is no way Trump isn’t going to try to upstage this news, but even the White House misfits realized the magnitude of this loss.
And yes, it is beyond infuriating to see The Worst People all mewling about Dolly’s philanthropy. This sums it up:
The most racist, bigoted person you've seen on your timeline who regularly calls for the government to slash funding for charitable causes: "Genuine tears for Dolly Parton passing. She stood for so much."
— derek guy (@dieworkwear.bsky.social) 2026-08-25T23:20:38.048Z
The same people who support taking food away from children are all so touched by Dolly’s care for people. It makes me want to scream.
But this is what set me off:
Let’s see if we can help the MAGAts glean the shape and tenor of Dolly’s politics.
Country music icon Dolly Parton has revealed that she used some of the royalties she earned from Whitney Houston’s cover of her song “I Will Always Love You” to invest in an office complex in a Black neighborhood in Nashville, Tenn.
During an appearance on the show Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, Parton said she thought it was an apt way to honor the Black singer, who boosted the song’s popularity with her cover.
“It was mostly just Black families and people that lived around there,” Parton said. “It was a whole strip mall. And I thought, ‘This is the perfect place for me to be, considering it was Whitney.’ “
She went on: “I just thought, ‘This was great. I’m going to be down here with her people, who are my people as well.’ And so I just love the fact that I spent that money on a complex. And I think, ‘This is the house that Whitney built.’ “
She didn’t care if you were LGBTQ+:
She dismissed the fake panic around bathrooms:
In a recent interview with CNN Money, Dolly Parton offered her own assessment of North Carolina’s anti-LGBTQ “Bathroom Bill.”
“I think everybody should be treated with respect,” the country music star noted. “I don’t judge people, and I try not to get too caught up in the controversy of things. I hope that everybody gets a chance to be who and what they are.
And she was pro-marriage equality, too.
Country legend Dolly Parton appeared on The Joy Behar Show Friday and was asked whether she supports marriage equality.
“Would you say that you are pro-gay marriage?” asked Behar, noting that Parton’s background might suggest otherwise.
“I know that’s true,” acknowledged Parton. “I always say, ‘Sure, why can’t they get married? They should suffer like the rest of us do.'”
Dolly mastered the art of wrapping the truth in a sweet wrapper. She was always affirming people and ended with a self-deprecating joke that obviously confused people who disagreed with her.
Her affirmation of LGBTQ+ people was more than comments:
In 2019, Parton used her Netflix anthology series, Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings, to tell a distinctly queer family story.
The episode “Two Doors Down” centered on a gay couple, played by Andy Mientus and Michael J. Willett, navigating family secrets and rejection during a New Year’s Eve wedding. Some viewers reportedly walked out of a screening at Dollywood after learning the two men were romantically involved.
Parton stood behind the story.
“It’s important that I touched on everything that all families go through,” she said. “Everyone has gays in their family.”
In 2020, “Two Doors Down” won the GLAAD Media Award for outstanding individual episode in a series without a regular LGBTQ+ character.
Dolly supported the Black Lives Matter movement:
Dolly Parton expressed her support for Black Lives Matter in an interview with Billboard, saying that while she hasn’t attended any marches this summer, she supports the protest movement and its push for racial justice.
“I understand people having to make themselves known and felt and seen,” she told the magazine. “And of course Black lives matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!”
Dolly stood up for people with AIDS when it was unpopular to do so:
Parton lost friends to AIDS in the 1980s and put her production company Sandollar behind Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, the documentary about the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt that went on to win an Oscar and a Peabody. She showed up for the cause at a moment when the Reagan administration’s response was widely condemned as too little, too late, and when most of her country-crossover peers stayed quiet.
She stood up for women’s equality and against sexual harassment. It’s just a funny movie now, but “9 to 5” tacked the Me Too movement’s themes 46 years ago. And her co-stars were well-known liberals, too.
There are so many other things she did that won’t fit here. She bought band uniforms for majority Black high school bands. She embraced drag queens when drag was a liminal art. And MAGAland was so happy to be able to celebrate her life because they think she believed all the same hateful stuff they do. And they do that because every one of their cultural icons is a garbage fire: Kid Rock? Mel Gibson? Chachi?
Dolly’s most subversive act was contained in her biggest charity project, the Imagination Library. Reading is a subversive act these days. Learning about people and places and events makes you less stupid, less bigoted, and less hateful. It’s not a surprise that the GOP is going after public education and pushing various forms of AI: a populace that thinks is a major barrier to authoritarians. And there was Dolly sending kids books, encouraging parents to get their kids reading—and thinking—for themselves.
As for the biggest sign for MAGAts that Dolly wasn’t one of them, she gave a million dollars to help research the Moderna Covid vaccine. She got vaccinated on camera so people could see that the vaccine was safe. And even though refusing the Covid vaccine was a huge identity for so many MAGAts, many of them seem to have had memory-holed her vaccination views. Hopefully they think a little now and rethink their anti-vaccine nonsense.
A girl can dream, right?
I’ll leave you with this:
One thing I would like to see in the wake of Dolly Parton’s death is an incredible amount of discomfort aimed at ultra-wealthy folks. “Dolly did this,” or “Dolly did that” with her millions. What are you, random wealth-acccumulating dirtbag, doing with all the money our society has bestowed on you? Are hungry people being fed? Are homeless people being housed? Are you making the openings and opportunities so readily available to you available to others, or are you feverishly pulling up the ladder so fewer people have access to a better life?
No? You’re not doing anything of the sort? Why not?
i agree–there have been some posts noting how much of her wealth that she gave away and also how much she still had to live very comfortably. that highlights how much more other mega wealthy people could do.