Dolly Parton's platform

What did the President of the United States have to say upon learning of Dolly Parton's death on Tuesday? First 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." Some people took Trump and the DSA agreeing on Dolly to mean that she was A-political, but on today's explain from box, the truth is Dolly was just better at politics than just about any singer, actor, or politician you can think of. I'm Ina Garten. This fall, join me for Happy Hour with Ina, my new video podcast. Each week on the show, I'll invite guests for a delicious drink and a conversation at my kitchen table in New York City, and you're invited. Subscribe to Happy Hour with Ina on YouTube or your favorite podcast app for new episodes every Wednesday, starting September 16th. Megan Rapino here. This week on Why Are You Like This, I'm talking with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Pablo Torre about his New York City upbringing, striking fear into the hearts of sports teams and blazing his own trail in sports media. Pablo also flips the script on me and gets me to answer a very spicy question. Check out the latest episode of Why Are You Like This, wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube. What a way to make today explained. Marissa Ramos. I'm a senior writer at Rolling Stone. And Marissa, when you see the democratic socialist 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 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. So she knew how to use words both in her songs and both in her public speech and how she communicated to the world. The 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 where you 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 street 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. And 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 finally 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. Ask my dad to help me start this little program. Call the Imagination Library where we give books to children. From 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 Dolly'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, but 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, vaccine. I'm begging 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. Because once you're dead, then that's a bit too late. But then she also, I think just a couple of 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 allied 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. Most of my people were not that educated, but they are very, very intelligent. Good common sense. Horsesense, we called it. Spoke it about Black Lives Matter. She said, "And of course, Black Lives Matter. Do we think our little blood ashes of 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 quiet, 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 thought it was the most unbelievable thing I'd ever heard. I 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 reach." 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, 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?" Or so it was the ways that you saw it and the ways that kind of buzz 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? Who's playbook was she emulating or did she make up her own? I mean, yeah, you're exactly right. She's, you know, this wasn'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 if people try to dig something out of her. We 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 mask shut if you want to stay in show business. I'm not in politics. I'm an entertainer. And yeah, 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 stereotype. You know, and there's a lot of people that don't feel as we know, represented in neither party that feel frustrated with 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'd 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, women are good. And 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 the 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? Sure. 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, okay, 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 a big rally take to erect this Dolly Parton statue. And she didn't want it. She didn't want that moment in such like a fiery, difficult moment in our culture, did not want to have a statue erected different. I think she did say one of the quotes. She's like, sure, at one point in the future, if you wanna 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, the other. It's just so interesting. - You know, when we're talking about politics, we're often talking about power. And I wonder what Dolly understood about power and her relationship with it. Because obviously by focusing on these issues that she cared most about, be it childhood literacy or, you know, 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. 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. But, you know, understanding as a woman in country music, in entertainment, that she was always going to be always gonna be working in a deficit and what she could do to reclaim those moments for herself. - And yet, I don't know, it worked so well for Dolly that you think other people would be like, "Oh, I'm gonna 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. They're very common around here. But I do think it taps into a certain kind of sentiment that yes, there's entertainers 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. And I don't think Dolly Parton wanted people to be neutral either. I think there's a reframing of these issues, is issues of humanity and issues of love and even issues of, if you're a person of faith, like she really repeatedly said, you know, we're all God's children. Well, I feel the fine Christian that you think you are, why are you judging people? Why are you a, that's God's job, we're not God, we're not judges, 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 my own, try to do God's work too. I think if a politician could learn from that, that might be a little helpful. It also be helpful for other musicians and celebrities, or was this just a Dolly thing? We're gonna ask when today explain returns. (upbeat music) Apple dropped some new upgraded computers this week, like a new Mac studio for AI stuff, a new Mac Mini for AI stuff, with new faster chips, also for AI stuff. Also this week on the Vurchcast, we give a dorm room, a smart tech makeover, we get advice on what laptops are worth buying now that everything is more and more expensive, and we break down what happened this week's big metacettlement about kids safety. That's this week on the Vurchcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Support for today's plane comes from Framer, if your team wants a website that looks and feels handcrafted, but is not, and is still fast to shift, check out Framer, it's built for exactly that. 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Banking services and chime card provided by Chime's bank partners, qualifying direct deposits required terms and limits apply, go to chime.com/disclosures for details. ♪ You come again ♪ ♪ Looking better than a body has arrived ♪ Today exclaimed. Judy Kurtz, I'm the hills in the no 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, 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 gonna pick a political side. You 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 mom 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 maybe failing? Well, 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 dip, dip, dip, dip. 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. And then she, of course, famously did 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 that 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 elections, celebrities do not make a difference. What's whoever, and who people vote for. And 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. He'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 mud-slinging of politics. I interviewed Paris Hilton earlier this year who is 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 dispassing. I don't want to ever weigh anyone's decision based on that, so I don't really get into that. So we've seen examples of celebrities sort of being cojoled 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 mega 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. Yeah, 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 Casey 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. And 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. So it doesn't just seem like an out-of-touch Hollywood star is co-seeing 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. You 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. I think that's right. And maybe I have just a little bit of a bias in this area since I covered the intersection of Hollywood and politics. There's always been a relationship between Hollywood and politics. And although Dolly Parton was able to largely avoid it for the most part, she's kind of in the celebrity universe. Dolly Parton is in a galaxy of her own. Dollywood. Dollywood is in her own place. So I don't think that celebrities are going to be able to duplicate that. I think they're always going to be a part of the political conversation. Judy works for the Hill. Marissa works for Rolling Stone. Abishai Artsy produced the program Amina Al-Sadi edited Patrick Boyd and David Tadashore reunited. Gabriel Dunettop did the Dolly Dilligence. The rest of the nine to fibers, Denise Guerra, Danielle Hewitt, Dustin DeSoto, Ariana Spuru, Hadim Awagdi, Miles Bryan, Peter Balon on Rose and Kelly Westinger, Jolly Myers, Miranda Candy, and Noel King, who actually starts at five and goes to bed around nine. Brakemaster's 'Sylmder's Love' is like a butterfly. I'm Sean Ramos for him. Today explain is distributed by WNIC that shows a part of the Vox Media podcast network, voxmedio.com, with podcasts at the beginning. It's podcasts.voxmedia.com. And you can listen ad free at vox.com/members. [BLANK_AUDIO]