The Democratic Socialists Of America And Dolly Parton

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The sad news today is that country music legend Dolly Parton has died.

I admit that I’m not particularly a fan of country music. It’s not that I don’t like it; I just devote my time to other things. But everybody knew about Dolly Parton, and as far as I can tell there isn’t anyone who did not like and admire her. Mary Katherine Ham summarizes the reaction in a tweet this afternoon:

A year of mourning for one of the only people we all agreed on. So sad. What a lady and what a life.

Parton lived a life of hard work and of gratitude. She worked her way up from nothing. Ham continues in a series of tweets that capture some of the high points:

I of course admired Dolly's music and business acumen. But she also lived with such obvious gratitude, fueled by faith. She came from nothing, but with no chip on her shoulder. Quite the opposite. You can look through the window of her one-bedroom childhood home on display at Dollywood while listening to "Coat of Many Colors" and know she was rich long before she was rich. . . .

Parton was famous for her generosity and philanthropy, making contributions particularly in the areas of childhood literacy and medical research.

Parton’s passing comes at a moment of the rapid rise of the Democratic Socialists of America. As the DSA has risen, the backgrounds of its leaders have become the subject of great public interest. The contrast between Dolly Parton and the leaders of the DSA could not be greater. While Parton was known for her gratitude and charity, the DSA leaders are filled with anger, resentment and envy. And yet Parton is the one who worked her way up from nothing, while the leaders of the DSA all seem to come from privileged backgrounds.

Let’s look at just a few examples:

  • Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City. His father is a tenured professor at Columbia, and his mother a successful movie director. The family owns three homes, in New York City, India, and Uganda. (Do they have pied-a-terre taxes over there?).

  • Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of the New York City DSA chapter. The New York Post calls him a “silver spoon socialist,” which I guess puts him in the same category as Karl Marx and Fidel Castro. He lives in a $1.5 million Bed-Stuy townhouse gifted to him and his brother by their wealthy parents, who have a successful business and own two $3 million homes in South Florida. Gordillo has posed as a union electrician on social media, but in fact was expelled for non-attendance from an apprenticeship program of the IBEW. Gordillo lived in a rental apartment while his townhouse was being renovated, and is being sued in Brooklyn housing court for skipping out on three months rent when he departed.

  • Grace Ryan, sometimes referred to as the “Lulu Lenin” of the New York DSA. She is heir to an Ohio-based chocolate company. The New York Post quotes Ryan whining about the rent on her luxury Brooklyn apartment: “East Williamsburg was invented by my landlord to charge me an extra $100/month on my rent,” she said on X last year of her $3,170 a month Bushwick studio. The pad, in a new luxury building with a gym, squash court, rooftop, doorman and elevator, is rent-stabilized through a city program that gives developers tax breaks in exchange for including affordable units.

  • Then there’s Morris Katz, known as a top campaign advisor to both Mayor Mamdani and Graham Platner, the recently flamed-out Maine Senate candidate. Katz is the son of famous producer and screenwriter David Bar Katz, and grew up in a $5 million Upper West Side apartment. He recently defaulted on $14,000 in rent on a luxury Brooklyn apartment.

I find nothing to admire in these angry and envious nepo babies.

Here in the Menton family, we have a daily ritual that we call “Favorite Part of the Day.” At dinnertime, we go around the room, and everybody recounts some event from the day that was particularly interesting or enjoyable. (Mine today was seeing a very intense rainbow at the end of a brief thunderstorm. In the few moments before it disappeared, I was able to get a photograph that captured a part of the intensity.).

The idea of Favorite Part of the Day is to teach appreciation and gratefulness. It’s particularly useful for the young ones, but a good reminder for the adults as well. Angers and jealousies are not welcome. I suspect that the DSA grouches would find us in need of cancelation.