I know, I know. The above tweet is rankly preposterous. I have already nominated Dolly Parton for Governor of Tennessee, roughly two years ago. She doesn’t want any part of my speculative Substackery. And I also know that Dolly Parton, at 76, is as apolitical as you can get (though she occasionally weighs in on controversial matters she really believes in). Dolly is a very philanthropic American, universally beloved that is almost always on the side of the underdog, because she was that once.
But if Dolly Parton were Speaker … things would be sooo much better than they are at present. Because everyone — and I mean EVERYONE — loves Dolly. Whether you area conservative, a libertarian, a liberal, a granola crunching underwater basket weaver, you, as a warm-blooded inhabitant of this big blue marble, have probably wept over “Jolene.” You have probably had chills running down your spine while listening to “Silver Dagger.” Dolly Parton is honorable, kind, decent and — yeah, yeah, yeah — wholly apolitical person. Here’s how I described her strenuous apoliticality:
A part of Dolly Parton’s Southern hospitality involves remaining studiously apolitical. That has served her well, as her fanbase is solidly southern Republican (but also the young and hip). Parton was awarded the Presidential Medial of Freedom — America’s highest civilian honor — twice, and turned it down as many times. “I couldn’t accept it because my husband was ill, and then they asked me again about it, and I wouldn’t travel because of the Covid,” Parton told the Today Show. Then-President Trump happened to have been the one issuing the medal at the time. President Obama has since issued regrets that he never awarded her the medal and has said he would recommend her to now-President Biden. Parton, artfully apolitical, demurs, “now if I take it I will feel like I am doing politics, so I am not sure.”
At 76, though what has Dolly got left to lose?
Although she grew up poor, she is poor no longer. If she lost her conservative, Smokey Mountain listening base, she would still have a massive platform to continue on in the music industry. Dolly will not be “Dixie Chicked.” Dolly has nothing left to prove in Country Music, except, perhaps, to continue to make hits for the sake of expressing herself. And there is virtuous merit to continued artistic productivity; but there is also merit in serving your country as well.
As an employer and as a businesswoman, both profitable and progressive. Dollywood Parks and Resorts creates jobs in Tennessee and is considered one of the top ten tourist attractions of the state. Dollywood helps employees pursue further education. It is quite possible for Dolly to convey that Southern hospitality while also bringing “the Volunteer State” more in sync with Tennessee families. Of late her message has been one of unity, more a secular-religious message than political. Parton already has a strong civic sense of “giving back.” Her Imagination Library, for example, gives free books to children, distributing over 900,000 books per month in the U.S. Imagine how much more she could do for early childhood education as Speaker of the House!
Her actual politics are not without some mystery. Although Parton, a Sevier County native, comes off as more Democrat than Republican, she has never officially endorsed a Presidential candidate. That, of course, is good for business and one of the reasons why she has been culturally relevant for over half a century. It could also be perfect for a consensus candidate for Speaker of the House, one that would bring unity to our most divided House. If Dolly could swing over a few Appalachian votes, and I don’t doubt for an instant that she couldn’t, she would be the next Speaker of the House.
Born in a one-room cabin in the Smokey Mountains, Dolly, one of twelve children, performed on local radio and television by the time she was 10 years old. Like Johnny Cash, her songs have always sided with the lower and working classes against the abuses of the arrogant and out-of-touch overclass. And in an interview with Billboard last year, at the height of the pandemic, she affirmed the Black lives Matter movement. “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!”
If Dolly were to allow her name to be floated for Speaker of the House of Representatives, she would, to be sure, have to not dress like the “town tramp,” one of her biggest, and most endearing fashion influences. A portion of the excellence of Dolly is her folksy egalitarianism. Her life, in the eyes of her Lord and Maker, is no better or worse than those of the town tramp who, in fact, she always considered glamorous. That is a perfect starting point to any political education — the lack of elite pretentions. Contrast that, for example, with the animal opportunism of onbe Kevin McCarthy.
Character is Destiny
Kevin McCarthy just failed on his eight attempt to become Speaker proving the enduring legacy of Heraclitan fragments. “Character is Destiny” never felt so eternally valid. Political consultant Tim Miller on Deadline: White House yesterday got it just right:
It is kind of gratifying to see (Kevin McCarthy) being humiliated by this group that he enabled and he caused ... it rubs me the wrong way to call (the "Never Kevins") rebels, too. The really are nihilists and they really are insurrectionists ... they don't even have a policy agenda that they're objecting to here, they want to burn everything down ... Kevin coddled them, because he thought that coddling them was his path to the Speakership. He enabled them. After the capital was stormed, Kevin could have tried to whip people to not vote to overturn the election -- remember they all gathered back and held the vote again -- he could have whipped against that. He could have tried to convince his members that this was a moment to unite for Democracy. He didnt do that. And the weeks that followed, he could have kept pushing for the Impeachment, instead he flew down to Mar a Lago. In the years that followed he could have helped Liz Cheney and Peter Meijer, and the other impeachers in their primaries, he didnt do that, so he really made his own bed here by getting in with the insurrectionists.
Indeed.
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