With the passing of Dolly Parton, the nation mourns the loss of a true treasure.
A foundational figure in American music and culture, she spent decades spanning generations and bringing people together with her extraordinary gift of story and song.
Dolly Parton was the embodiment of the American Dream fulfilled. Rising from humble beginnings as a coal miner’s daughter, she proudly shared her heritage on the global stage with grace, wit, and unyielding strength.
Through her music, timeless songwriting, and boundless philanthropy, most notably through her Imagination Library, she showed us how warmth, generosity, and resilience can unite us all. She was a unifying force in American culture, overcoming divisions with love, faith, and a relentless dedication to her community, children, and the less fortunate. Though she has left us, her legacy and spark will continue to inspire humanity and future generations.
In Memoriam:
Read more about recent notable passing’s on People.com.
As the nation hits its 250th milestone, we look across a landscape of rolling hills from sea to shining sea, and find a People struggling to celebrate the all mighty power of the red, white and blue. The “American Dream” remains a deliberate illusion for many, especially those whose ancestors built this great nation in chains. Today, our freedom and democracy indeed feels like we’re eating a “shit Sundae” with Donald Trump as the poison cherry on top, exposing a nation rotten at its core.
The absurdity is thick.
While we grapple with serious systemic failures, we are fed a diet of nonsense, from the now halted decision and supreme stupidity of dismantling a $386 million ocean monitoring network to the ridiculous and disrespectful insult of Josh Hokit claiming Michelle Obama is a man. Mind you, he was paid to tarnish our White House and spew his racist guttersnipe behavior and misogyny; behavior right in line with our current rogue and unserious administration, and debaucherous state of disorder.
Nowhere was this national madness and global disgrace more visible than at “The Claw,” the giant metal UFC arena erected on the White House South Lawn for Trump’s 80th birthday, and as part of the nation’s 250th Independence Day celebration. The “UFC Freedom 250” event was branded as some macho image of Trump, but as a severe thunderstorm delayed the fights and the Blue Angels roared over a supreme failure of a President, it felt less like a celebration of America’s greatness and more like a desperate display of Klanism and performative white boy strength.
Meanwhile, the human cost of “Make America Great Again,” our “Great Deals” and “no more wars” President and global criminality mounts.
As we surpass the 180th day of bombing Iran, including the dismantling of the “Great Deal” Trump promised has been criticized by all sides for lacking details on nuclear programs and sanctions. And backed by America, we are watching 1,000+ days of Israel’s active genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and other Semitic people in the surrounding region. Compounding these crimes against humanity being committed in our names and against our will or votes, our sitting government is going so far off norm and course to sanction ICC Judge Nicolas Guillou for his work to bring about the international justice the world is demanding. It is a staggering blow to our international standing and the “beacon of hope” illusion we foolishly believed was a real American principle.
The irony is peak American.
We spent $14.2 million to line the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in “American Flag Blue,” only for it to be immediately plagued by Trump’s corruption and residual algae, while his administration is steadily dismantling the social safety nets the American worker fought long and hard to establish. We can’t even keep our Veterans housed and supported when they return broken from all the manufactured wars that only profit the military industrial complex and those who vote in Congress to fight them.
Still, to move forward, we must look back.
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass asked, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Today, as we mark the 250th node in our tapestry, we must all ask, “What to the Working Class American is the Fourth of July?”
As Langston Hughes wrote, we must “Let America Be America Again,” the land that never has been yet, and yet must be. The American Dream remains unfulfilled, but it remains a dream worth the pursuit of a people willing to face their ugly truths.
Implications for American Culture
The 250th anniversary of the United States finds the nation at a crossroads of self-inflicted racial disorder and tarnished global reputation. The contrast between expensive, symbolic renovations and the dismantling of essential governance and international legal frameworks, highlights a serious American crisis and shift toward circus governance over substantive leadership.
American culture is in crisis. The elevation of blatant and despicable corruption permeating across our states, from the Karen Reed trial, to the racially suspicious death of Nolan Wells, including the mishandling of the case reminiscent of the mishandling of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, suggest a deepening divide between the idealized “American Dream” and the reality of its current trajectory; corruption, madness and arrogant racism.
As the nation turns 250, the cultural shift under Trump’s dark shadow guided by Project 2025 is heading toward an aggressive racist nostalgia that ignores the inclusive future Langston Hughes envisioned. As we look to the future, may sanity return to a clean Congress, a disinfected White House and a Supreme Court rooted in a judicial ideology guided by the Constitution, for the betterment of America and a dream yet to be fulfilled.
