One reason I think she was able to leverage her position as much as she did was, as someone on bluesky pointed out, she very visibly represented the "good" parts of stereotypical southern culture. She was witty, down to earth, kind, and generous. Most importantly though, it came across as *genuine*.
Olivia Rodrigo is another example in that she just did a concert event to benefit women's organizations. I haven't followed it or Rodrigo closely but I haven't seen her take on an overtly partisan tone or stance on anything, even though it's very much about supporting abortion. I guess you can argue abortion is about the most partisan issue possible. But I haven't seen much that explicitly talks about abortion in public statements. So it seems like she's following Dolly's path and isn't afraid that it could become partisan.
I just googled it to see if I'd missed her being partisan in any way and I thought I'd check the FoxNews link since they'd be likely to jump on any partisan statement and critique her. But their story about it is entirely uncritical: https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/melinda-french-gates-stuns-festival-crowd-pledges-match-olivia-rodrigo-fundraising-20m-haul. Granted, none of the publicity I can find explicitly talks about abortion. So she might have made it easy on partisan media to avoid it. But several on the list of organizations being donated to are pretty clearly related to abortion and she still managed to get partisan media to cover it in a non-partisan way, even with organizations like Planned Parenthood being mentioned in their piece.
YES! Dolly was very vocal about standing up for minorities and embraced both LGBTQ rights and Black Lives Matter. She didn't call herself a feminist, but she was a strong and powerful woman. She was also religious and embodied Christian love, unlike the Christian Nationalists.
One reason I think she was able to leverage her position as much as she did was, as someone on bluesky pointed out, she very visibly represented the "good" parts of stereotypical southern culture. She was witty, down to earth, kind, and generous. Most importantly though, it came across as *genuine*.
Olivia Rodrigo is another example in that she just did a concert event to benefit women's organizations. I haven't followed it or Rodrigo closely but I haven't seen her take on an overtly partisan tone or stance on anything, even though it's very much about supporting abortion. I guess you can argue abortion is about the most partisan issue possible. But I haven't seen much that explicitly talks about abortion in public statements. So it seems like she's following Dolly's path and isn't afraid that it could become partisan.
I just googled it to see if I'd missed her being partisan in any way and I thought I'd check the FoxNews link since they'd be likely to jump on any partisan statement and critique her. But their story about it is entirely uncritical: https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/melinda-french-gates-stuns-festival-crowd-pledges-match-olivia-rodrigo-fundraising-20m-haul. Granted, none of the publicity I can find explicitly talks about abortion. So she might have made it easy on partisan media to avoid it. But several on the list of organizations being donated to are pretty clearly related to abortion and she still managed to get partisan media to cover it in a non-partisan way, even with organizations like Planned Parenthood being mentioned in their piece.
Leading by example, and not false words or questionable deeds, is an underrated way of getting through life. She was an undisputed mistress of that.
YES! Dolly was very vocal about standing up for minorities and embraced both LGBTQ rights and Black Lives Matter. She didn't call herself a feminist, but she was a strong and powerful woman. She was also religious and embodied Christian love, unlike the Christian Nationalists.