I have never had a conversation with anyone saying they did not like her. In fact, Parton is the Venn diagram middle intersection for President Trump and the Democratic Socialists of America — with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani saying she was an “irreplaceable champion of the working class” and President Trump saying it was “like losing a member of the family.” I cannot think of another public figure of whom we could say the same.

If you asked me, I would have claimed her as a feminist icon. One of the first songs I knew to sing, and I know all the words, was “9 to 5,” which speaks to my heart as a woman who works. I believed she was singing an anthem to women working everywhere. When she partnered with Pitbull to release a variation on that song, which elevated the role of working mothers, I was thrilled. If you see me with my earbuds in, it’s very possible that the Pitbull and Parton collaboration is playing loudly in my ears.

But Parton never shared her political opinions because she understood that “no matter what you say, it’s wrong,” which she claimed in her podcast in 2019. She also declined the Presidential Medal of Freedom from both Trump and Joe Biden. She understood that to be a public figure, she needed to not offend anyone. And she was in the public eye my entire life, never putting a foot wrong. That means everyone can claim her — people who love that “9 to 5” song and do not hear it as a woman’s anthem but as a union anthem. Or something else.

We can learn from this. Parton won in the attention economy without ever being mean or engaging in rage bait behavior. She proved over decades that you can be successful and famous without ever intentionally hurting someone else. We can also learn from her neutrality. She would talk about her causes that ranged from childhood literacy to funding a vaccine for COVID-19, and she put her money where her mouth was, consistently lifting people up and helping them. She understood that her philanthropy would affect Democrats and Republicans, and if she was going to help everyone, they needed to be able to see themselves in her. 

Maybe we can learn the most from her sense of humor. I was asked in a class, “What is your advice for navigating politics?” I answered, “Have a sense of humor.” If you can laugh, you win people over. If you can laugh at yourself, even more so. Parton was hilariously funny, even when talking about very hard issues. Laughter makes the conversations easier, which makes solving the problems much more possible.

The thing is, Parton had political opinions. She told people she was raised in a family with a mother who was a Democrat and a father who was a Republican. Who knows if that was true, but she would have learned early on that politics at the family dinner table can be hard. She understood there are so many more things we have in common than that divide us, and we need to lean into the ones that bring us together.

People tell me often that they don’t know what my politics are. Students will wonder and ask what team I belong to. Colleagues will ask other colleagues who I voted for. This surprises me, because I think it’s pretty obvious. But I have very much taken a lesson from Parton on neutrality. You should never decide to cut someone off because of their party affiliation or a position on a policy. And while I am a public political commentator, I am never mean or indignant. Kindness matters more than being right in an argument. And being humble means you really should never be sure you are right. I remain open, always, to being persuaded. And mostly, I deliver my political analysis with a smile.

Parton is so much more politically cool than I could ever be, and I am lucky to have lived in a time when she was making music. Just like the rest of America, my heart was heavy when I heard the news. Maybe we can take this moment of reflecting on a life worth living, look at the way she lived her politics and learn from her. 

Leah Murray is a Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Political Science and the director of the Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics & Public Service at Weber State University. This commentary is provided through a partnership with Weber State. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent the institutional values or positions of the university.