Legendary singer-songwriter Dolly Parton passed away on Aug. 25 at age 80 after what’s been described as a “brief battle” with cancer. Her decades-long musical career was most commonly associated with country and bluegrass, although she occasionally delved into gospel, pop, blues and more. She had multiple hit singles and albums, won many awards and earned more accolades than most of her contemporaries could ever dream of.
Parton’s most impressive accomplishment? Her popular appeal spanned the entire political spectrum. Conservatives, liberals, socialists, libertarians and others celebrated her legacy and claimed her as one of their own. I honestly can’t remember the last entertainer who received the praises of National Review and Communist Party USA in the same breath.
A March 2026 UMass/YouGov poll also revealed that not only was Parton the most popular personality at 70 percent, but as the New York Times put it, “three quarters of both Democrats and Republicans had a favorable opinion of the singer.”
How did Parton accomplish this? She didn’t stick her nose into politics, and stayed in her lane as an entertainer. This happened not only “9 to 5,” but on a 24/7 basis.
In a March 2018 Nightline interview with ABC News’s David Wright, she was asked about U.S. President Donald Trump and the infamous Access Hollywood tape. Her response? “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.”
Wright pressed on and said, “And yet you’re also a role model.” Parton took the question in stride and answered it perfectly. “Yes, I am. That’s why I don’t talk about people cuz I have a lot of fans out there and I don’t want to offend anybody. And besides I just don’t get into that. And so if you are deciding you may want to ask me something more serious, don’t cuz I’m not going to…My mother was a Democrat. My daddy was a Republican. So I’m a hypocrite…and I’ve got as many Republican fans as Democrats and I don’t want to make any of them mad at me. So I don’t play politics.”
This is the way that many entertainers used to answer questions about hot button topics like politics and current events. It helped ensure that their fan bases always crossed political lines – and virtually no-one was ever cross with them.
Here are a few examples.
Parton’s interview was juxtaposed with a similarly-worded response by Elvis Presley, the great singer who appeared to shift from moderate liberalism to moderate conservatism over time. Late night host Johnny Carson was believed to be everything from a “raging moderate” to, in the words of his former lawyer and biographer Henry Bushkin, “definitely Republican, but of an Eisenhower sort.” Legendary comedian Jack Benny always publicly claimed to be apolitical, but fellow comedian Rich Little suggested he was a Republican. His great friend George Burns never revealed his political ideology, and may very well have supported both Democrats and Republicans. Lucille Ball was a Democrat – and briefly a registered Communist to “appease her socialist grandfather” – but voted for Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. Singer Paul Robeson was a well-known socialist. Actor Henry Fonda was a liberal Democrat. Actor Clark Gable was a conservative Republican, as was fellow actor Jimmy Stewart. And so on.
What was Parton’s political ideology? No-one really knows for sure.
Parton was born into poverty in east Tennessee and worked hard to become a successful musician and provide for her family. She was a religious Christian with social liberal tendencies in support of gay marriage and feminism. She was a capitalist who earned millions from her music and business ventures like the Dollywood theme park, but also gave heavily to charities and spent plenty of money on her Imagination Library that mails free books to underprivileged children.
If I had to hazard a guess, Parton was most likely a classic Southern Democrat who occasionally voted Republican. This seems to make the most sense if one takes her lifetime of ideas and beliefs into account.
Then again, does it really matter? As the U.S. conservative commentator Ben Shapiro wrote on Aug. 25 in an X post, “Perhaps the only thing that unites Americans: we all think Dolly Parton was awesome.” That same sentiment largely existed in Canada and other parts of the world, too.
Thank you for entertaining all of us, Dolly. Rest in peace.
Michael Taube, a longtime newspaper columnist and political commentator, was a speechwriter for former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper.
