How Dolly Parton can save Trump’s America

Light, at a time of such unremitting gloom, is welcome from whichever source it comes. The musical Here You Come Again, a homage to Dolly Parton currently touring Australia which I saw last week, serves up a burst of sunbeams. Love is Like a Butterfly, Islands in the Stream, 9 to 5, Jolene. From first Dolly ballad to last, the show is not so much a feast of country and western, but a feel-good all-you-can-eat buffet.

Dolly Parton is that rare thing: a figure in these polarised times of near universal affection. When the New York Times asked in 2019: “Is there anything we can all agree on?” it answered its own question by raising up the Queen of Tennessee. Hail Dolly.

In her native south, the Bible Belt states of the old confederacy, she has maintained her popularity despite championing women’s and queer rights. This she has pulled off through her winsome personality, a loving, nonjudgmental faith, a deft line in self-deprecation – “it takes a lot of money to look this cheap” – and her sensitive political antennae, which may well be buried in those Steel Magnolia wigs. Remarks in 2016 that could easily be construed as an endorsement of Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump – “Hillary might make as good a president as anybody ever has”, she said – were immediately followed by a qualifier. “I think no matter if it’s Hillary or Donald Trump, we’re gonna be plagued with PMS either way — presidential mood swings!”

Classic Dolly, a non-aligned island in the stream.

I cannot think of anyone who tiptoes through the minefield of red and blue America with quite such surefootedness. Not so long ago, Tom Hanks, the star of all-American classics such as Saving Private Ryan, A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, Toy Story, Big and Turner and Hooch, might have made that list. But having survived Hollywood’s version of the Normandy landings, he came under heavy artillery fire earlier this year from Trump himself.

On Truth Social, the president rebuked Hanks as “woke” and “destructive”. Then, he congratulated the West Point military academy – or “Our great West Point (getting greater all the time!)“, as he put it – for scrapping a ceremony in the movie star’s honour. Yes folks, MAGA has cancelled Forrest Gump. Life truly is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.

Trump is obviously the most deliberately divisive US president, certainly of modern times and arguably since the founding of the republic. “I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them,” he boasted at the Charlie Kirk memorial, moments after the slain MAGA influencer’s widow, Erika, had offered forgiveness to the alleged assassin.

Alas, in America these days, potentially unifying moments – or, at least, potentially pacifying moments – often end up having a radicalising effect. That was true of COVID-19, with its battles over lockdowns and vaccines. That was true of the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, an American insurrection incited by a sitting US president. That was true even of the attacks of September 11, because of divisions over how the Bush administration responded militarily in Iraq. Also, it has become true of the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Where are the peacemakers? Barack Obama, a potentially unifying figure who rose to prominence by delivering hopeful paeans of national togetherness, ended up having the effect of deepening America’s disunion. Trump’s political rise, remember, began when he became the untitled leader of the “birther” movement, which questioned the very legitimacy of the country’s first African-American president.

In a nation marked by such mutual loathing, gone are the days when Ronald Reagan could win 49 of its 50 states. In 1984, the year of The Gipper’s landslide re-election, God Bless the USA by country singer Lee Greenwood was his campaign song. Now it has become a MAGA anthem. Aged 82, and struggling in the higher register, Greenwood performed it at the Charlie Kirk memorial as the musical prelude to Trump’s eulogy.

Listening to the sacred music that day, I was struck by how the hymns were the same as those sung at the most liberal churches in America – places of worship attended by couples in same-sex marriages and those who go by the pronouns “they and them”. But the grace of God means such wildly different things to vying Americans. For white Christian nationalists, the scriptures justify a crackdown on reproductive rights, a rejection of transgender people, the demonisation of immigrants and the pre-eminence of men. For many God-fearing Democrats, the New Testament is a social gospel, and Jesus a tender lord. Not even America’s first pontiff transcends his homeland’s political divide. Rather, Pope Leo has been cast as a counterbalancing influence to Trump.

In popular culture, Johnny Carson’s America has given way to Jimmy Kimmel’s America. In the media, if the legendary CBS anchor Walter Cronkite was still presenting the Nightly News, he could easily be facing a multi-millionaire dollar lawsuit from the president.

Perhaps the best an American politician can hope for these days is not to become a hate figure. It is partly why Joe Biden became the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020 – despite glaring signs his best days were behind him – and why he went on to beat Trump. This genial old man was difficult to demonise.

Just as few figures can rise above partisan politics, few places in America are political demilitarised zones. Even Walt Disney World in Florida has come under fire from Republicans, after its parent company opposed state legislation prohibiting classroom discussion and teaching about sexual orientation. Maybe the “Dollywood” theme park in the Smoky Mountains, founded by the country star in the mid-1980s and which this year celebrates “40 years of love”, is one such place.

At a time when the president is becoming more kingly, all the more reason to cherish the Queen of Tennessee.

Nick Bryant, a former BBC Washington correspondent, is the author of The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict with Itself.