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Dolly Parton Wouldn't Accept the Medal of Freedom from Trump and Probably Won't from Biden - Here's Why

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Country music icon Dolly Parton says she twice turned down the opportunity to be awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom from former President Donald Trump, and liberals are hailing her as an anti-Trump queen.

But there’s a catch: The 75-year-old isn’t sure if she would the same award from President Joe Biden either.

The corporate media, the political hacks on social media and others would like to portray Parton as being some sort of #resistance figure by pretending that comments she made Monday about turning down the award twice from Trump put her in their corner.

In fact, Parton did state plainly during an interview on NBC’s “Today” show that she twice spurned the country’s 45th president when offered the nation’s highest civilian honor.

“I couldn’t accept it because my husband was ill. Then they asked me again about it and I wouldn’t travel because of the COVID,” she said.

But those remarks came after she was asked about the possibility of accepting that very same award from the Biden administration.

Parton shot down co-hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager when she disclosed a piece of information that should have seemed relevant in the biased establishment media’s headlines: The Biden administration has apparently already offered her the award, or come close to it.

After Parton was asked if she had heard from the new administration about the award, she responded, “I actually have.”

“Now I feel like if I take it, I’ll be doing politics, so I’m not sure,” she said. “I don’t work for those awards. It’d be nice but I’m not sure that I even deserve it. But it’s a nice compliment for people to think that I might deserve it.”

The style and music icon says she twice turned down the award from Trump, both times for logistical reasons, and now isn’t sure she would accept one from Biden, apparently for political reasons, as she wishes to stay impartial.

But if you look at news headlines and the messaging from Twitter’s activists, you might be under the impression that Parton, like some sort of valiant leftist activist, had turned down the award from Trump because she was part of the #resistance.

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Just look at how vague, misleading and outright dishonest those posts were — and they were only the tip of the iceberg.

In all likelihood, Parton wants to avoid engaging in the three-ring circus that is national politics, no matter what her personal views are. She might be rabidly anti-Trump, but we simply don’t know, and that’s great.

It’s a breath of fresh air in a hyper-political celebrity landscape where many of those among us who were blessed with talent in the arts too often pretend that their bank accounts and social statuses qualify them to tell the rest of us how to think.

Do you think famous people should refrain from entering the political arena?

Parton does deserve the award — from any administration. She donated $1 million of her own money last year to Vanderbilt University for the institution’s coronavirus research. According to CNN, some of that money went to Moderna’s COVID vaccine.

In apparently declining for the third time to accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom — or at least in suggesting she is “not sure” if she’d take it — Parton can avoid getting wrapped up in what would obviously be a situation that would alienate many of her fans and hurt her bottom line.

You can’t donate $1 million to a good cause if you’ve hindered your ability to earn $1 million.

The living legend doesn’t need the award if she has the respect of all who appreciate her contributions to culture, and also now to public health. Right now, she has that respect, and arguably deserves more.

But despite the left’s victory lap on this story, Parton seems to simply be staying in the middle, and more celebrities should follow her lead.

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Johnathan Jones has worked as a reporter, an editor, and producer in radio, television and digital media.
Johnathan "Kipp" Jones has worked as an editor and producer in radio and television. He is a proud husband and father.




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