RIP Dolly Parton – music legend and philanthropist, bona fide glamour puss and uniter of America. But while her death was announced last night – aged 80, surrounded by family in Nashville after a brief battle with cancer – Parton’s USA predeceased her by several years, killed off by the man in the White House.
Donald Trump might have been the country star’s direct contemporary (both were born in 1946), but there could hardly have been more distance between the versions of the America they stood for. Parton was renowned for bringing people together – not only has her music always crossed demographic lines, but her charitable projects encompassed everything from child literacy in Rotherham, supporting American bald eagles, hurricane relief initiatives, and the Salvation Army. She was awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in 2022.
By contrast, Trump’s record is almost farcical. Between axing abortion rights and his brutal immigration policies, rolling back trans rights and diversity initiatives, the President has systematically dismantled every provision his country ever made for anyone other than straight white men, all while hampering trade with his tariffs, plus fanning the flames of war across the planet.
Every time Trump turned away from the global community, Parton reached out like a mirror image. Just when some in his camp were undermining faith in vaccines during the pandemic, she donated a million dollars to coronavirus research, ultimately helping to develop the Moderna vaccine that saved countless lives. So, although she always remained strictly non-partisan in public, her actions spoke volumes.
Their divergence was all the more tragic because of what they could have shared – superficially at least, the perky country singer chimed perfectly with the stars-and-stripes fantasy of Trump’s Make America Great Again – Maga – campaign. Much has been made of the “Women for Trump” aesthetic of big hair and full-face make-up, but while it’s one that Parton arguably perfected years ago, there’s no reason to think she subscribed to the worldview it’s come to be associated with.
Parton’s wigs and rhinestones were a costume for a cartoon version of herself – something that Trump knows a thing or two about, with his orange tan and yellow cool-whip hairdo. But although their aesthetics overlapped, their attitudes to them certainly didn’t – describing her signature look as a combination of Cinderella, Mother Goose and the “local tramp”, Parton’s appearance was a joke that she was in on. Meanwhile, Trump’s fragile ego makes him rather less good-natured on the subject.
Considering their extreme looks, it’s no surprise that both have been well-trodden ground for drag queens on both sides of the Atlantic – equally intuitive is that parodies of Parton are almost universally affectionate, while those of the man who vowed to eliminate drag shows in 2025 are rather less so.
In an increasingly divided nation, Parton had fans from all political persuasions and backgrounds – the outpouring of tributes following her death proves it. No doubt, disapproval and defiance need to be both loud and far-reaching under Trump, but there’s also power in holding a middle ground, space for warring factions to encounter each other, which is what the music star represented.
Her near-unanimous approval is something the President clearly craves (see his pathetic posturing for a Nobel Peace Prize) – yet his cruelty and pomposity ensure it’s something he can only dream of. The irony would be elegant if it weren’t so galling: in his desperation for Parton-level American sainthood, he continues to destroy the version of the country she spent her whole life working for and singing about.
Both larger than life, Parton and Trump are exemplary of the power of storytelling, which is arguably what America was founded on in the first place; mobilising the enduringly romantic tug of Americana, their opposite trajectories are equally fable-worthy. Trump’s tall tales about faded glory and invading enemies got him to the White House, from where he has torn Parton’s alternate narrative (about love and freedom) to shreds.
As his presidency has shown, such principles take centuries to trickle into law, and only moments to undermine; yet the outpouring of affection in the wake of Parton’s passing is heartening proof of their cultural endurance. When Trump is gone, the long process of rebuilding what he smashed will begin.