The country star fought AI slop with AI slop by sharing an image of Parton as a Christ-like figure healing the sick
Donald Trump managed to post himself into more blasphemous territory than usual when his feud with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran War ostensibly led him to share an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus healing the sick.
The Truth Social post, which Trump eventually deleted, drew condemnation from both sides of the aisle. The president’s usual backers leaned more on disappointment, while his usual critics fired off mocking disbelief and exasperation. Kacey Musgraves, meanwhile, took the extremely online approach.
In a late-night post on X, Musgraves recreated the same image Trump shared, only this time with Dolly Parton as the Christ figure and Musgraves as the ailing patient. The photo was, perhaps aptly, shared without further comment from the country star.
This is a good bit. Parton is maybe the only figure in modern music — or maybe even all of modern pop culture — that’s beloved enough to warrant such a depiction. And a quick search of, say, “Saint Dolly Parton” shows Musgraves’ photo is far from the first time Parton’s fans and admirers have teetered on the brink of blasphemy while celebrating the country legend.
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(Parton, surely, would rebuff such false idolatry — though to quote Javier Bardem in Dune: Part Two, “The Mahdi is too humble to say He is the Mahdi. Even more reason to know He is!”)
All that said, let’s refrain from being overly effusive when our pop stars clap back at the president’s AI slop by generating their own AI slop. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, but that leaves a lot of scorched earth, and there’s no need to make a habit of it. As one of Musgraves’ own fans replied to her post, “You get one ai pass queen.”
