In a move more characteristic of autocratic regimes like Russia and China than the United States, the long-running Boston band the Dropkick Murphys have had their account on X (formerly Twitter) suspended, after a series of aggressive comments directed at President Donald Trump, his sidekick Elon Musk — who acquired the company in 2022 — and their followers.
The band’s singer, Ken Casey, has a long history of going after Trump, but after a series of comments directed toward MAGA supporters at the band’s concerts and, most recently, an interview on the left-leaning news platform MedasTouch, the group found its account suspended late Monday.
“One other thing Dropkick Murphys has always been about is a lot of songs about standing with your friends and family and the things you believe in, whether it’s politics, or just how you were raised,” Casey said on MeidasTouch. “And Donald Trump is the exact opposite of everything we sing about.
“He’s turned on his friends. He’s turned on America’s friends and our allies. He’s a rat and a coward when you think of it that way. America shouldn’t be turning on our allies,” he concluded. Trump’s aggressive embrace of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and tactics against America’s purported allies, including Ukraine, Canada and multiple European nations, have turned the country’s foreign policies upside down.
See the interview here, and the concert footage below.
Casey has been making comments directed at MAGA supporters who attended the band’s concerts — presumably attracted by their aggressive form of rock — for several weeks. Last month in Florida, he called out a man wearing a Trump-supporting shirt and hat, and made a “friendly” bet of $100 about where the man’s MAGA merch was manufactured.
“If you lose the bet, we switch shirts, OK? If you win the bet, I give you $100 and the shirt,” the singer said.
The MAGA shirt was made in Nicaragua, while the Murphys’ gear was manufactured in the U.S.
“He’s taking the shirt off. We’re taking crime off the streets,” Casey joked.
Late Sunday, during one of the band’s annual St. Patrick’s Day shows in their hometown of Boston, he called out another audience member brandishing a MAGA hat.
“If you’re in a room full of people and you want to know who’s in a cult, how do you know?” Casey asked the crowd. “They’ve been holding up a fucking hat the whole night to represent a president.”
He then seemed to address all Trump supporters by saying, “This is America, there’s no kings here. Anyway, sir, we’re gonna play a song about our grandparents and people who fought Nazis in the war and shit. So if you could just shut the fuck up for five minutes.” He also called the man’s MAGA hat the “Elon Musk True Nazi edition.”
Musk has banned multiple journalists and others for comments he perceived to be against him since he acquired the platform in 2022, usually without explanation.
Reps for the Dropkick Murphys and X either did not immediately respond to Variety’s requests for comment or did not immediately have a response.
