If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last decade, it’s to be more like Dolly.

Dolly Parton is dead.

I’m writing this mere hours after hearing the news and you are reading sometime later. This takes me back–back to a similar time, 1978 to be precise–when Anita Bryant was organizing her campaign of hate against anyone who wasn’t a straight, rich, white man. Dale Evans, Roy Rogers’ widow and trailmate, was asked if she supported Bryant’s crusade. She responded, “I’m too busy loving everybody to hate anybody.” That, in a nutshell, was Dolly Parton’s ethos.

Cops and robbers have at least one thing in common–they loved Dolly. MAGAs and leftists loved her, too. Cons and libs have lowered their flags to half-mast in silent unison. And even James Woods–Mr. MAGA incarnate–said nice things on X about his Straight Talk co-star’s passing. Maybe we need to take a cue from that. 

Buckminster Fuller once wrote, to a friend frustrated with opposition to his ideas, “Don’t oppose forces–use them.” I would suggest that we do the same going forward–use our mutual love for this great lady as a bridge to reunification.  If we can agree about Dolly, maybe that isn’t the only thing we can agree on. 

Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for Congress in Michigan against MAGA Mike Rogers, has also taken this approach, reaching out to Trump supporters and engaging them in dialogue. Not debate–almost the right word versus the right word–dialogue. Wherever he has done this, he has found numerous points of agreement, and also demonstrated that he is the antithesis of the scimitar-wielding, Qur’an-toting, Sharia-loving Muslim stereotype that right-wing media is intent on putting forth 24/7. We need more of this. Otherwise, it will just be more screaming and finger-pointing, and the only thing that will do is give succor and pleasure to Trump and his hellions. 

I’m not as good and kind and giving a person as Dolly Parton was. I need to do a lot more work to get even close. But it’s good, hard work–the best work there is. And if more of us are willing to put the effort in and reach across the aisle once more, despite the slings and arrows that will result, we may be surprised at the reception we get. 

Because I suspect that a lot of folks in MAGA World are growing tired of Trump’s empty promises and senile shenanigans–more than we think there are, more than are reflected in surveys and polls. When even a hardcore MAGA like Marjorie Taylor Greene breaks camp and is willing to push back against Orange Julius, that means there are thousands like her out there. They may be too confused or afraid to say so openly, but they’re there.

So I am taking a pledge: no more badmouthing Trump. I will continue to criticize the actions of ICE, the Department of Justice, the Department of Education and all the nefarious actions of his Cabinet. But I will no longer feed the beast, the one who profits most from the discord roiling our country.

It will be one of the hardest things I have ever done. My mind, of course, will continue to reel with sarcastic replies to his latest imbecilities and petty cruelties. That’s how I roll. But I will also strive to engage with questions, rather than sarcasm; to stick to facts, not insults–no matter how clever they seem. That is the way–the best way–I can think of to honor the life and work of Dolly Parton. In the words of another great musician, Jimi Hendrix, “Fly on by, sweet angel–fly on to the sky.”