How Dropkick Murphys Became Punk’s Loudest Anti-Trump Voice

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It’s time to leave the stage, but Ken Casey isn’t done talking to the union electricians yet.

The Dropkick Murphys frontman has been sitting there for 29 minutes and counting, legs dangling over the side of the temporary light fixture in the middle of a San Diego street, as he speaks with the dwindling crowd on a warm September night. He takes selfies, shakes hands and accepts union challenge coins, small metal discs commemorating the 41st annual convention of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, where Dropkicks just performed.

Nine forty-five. Ten o’clock in the evening. He continues. His bandmates are long gone; Members of his management team complain among themselves that they wish they could go too. The technicians clear the stage and Casey barely turns as one of them removes a microphone from inside his shirt. He stands there, talking to anyone who wants to tell him how important his group has been to them. “Cool human interactions,” as he later describes them. “Without these people, I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in, you know?

This is the fourth union convention Dropkick Murphys has attended this year. He would be there after any concert because he loves talking to his fans. But this audience is close to his heart. His grandfather, who helped raise him after his father’s death, was a truck driver and union organizer in their hometown of Boston, and for most of Casey’s childhood, he thought that would be his path, too. Tonight, even though his energy is fading, he doesn’t want a single audience member to feel like he hasn’t given them the attention they deserve. Dropkicks is a union band, from a union town, built on union values, and it’s a responsibility Casey takes very seriously.

During their set, Casey, 57, took numerous opportunities to preach to the thousands of electricians who came. “The truth is, the current president of the United States wouldn’t piss on any of us if we were on fire,” he says, the other six members of his band standing at attention behind him, his thick Boston accent making him sound like a lost punk-rock Kennedy. “You know that. I know that. But the problem is much worse than that. It has to do with the wealth gap. It has to do with all these criminals who have taken all of the blood, sweat and tears that we have worked for over the years, trying to strip us of our rights, trying to make it harder not only for us, but for our children and the next generation of people trying to build their lives. Let’s hope that what comes out of all these horrible times is a much stronger and much stronger America. less divided, and a much less divided working class and strong unions, so this one is for everyone who is sick of this shit Another pause, before shouting into the mic: “Are you with it. uuuuus?”

They launch into “Who Will Stand With Us?”, the first single from last year’s album. For the people. The crowd is jumping, bearded men in front singing, children on their parents’ shoulders raising their fists in the air, catharsis at the end of a long summer. If Woody Guthrie had a taste for slam-dancing in a hardcore pit accompanied by bagpipes, this song would be his jam.

When Dropkicks formed in 1996, they were not known as a particularly political band. Sure, they sang about union life, but they also had a pro-cop song (“Johnny Law”) and lots of lyrics about getting fucked up and fighting with other South Boston kids. Their politics were based on loyalty, pride and hard work. It didn’t take long for them to become headliners at punk festivals, hometown heroes who opened for the Red Sox at Fenway Park, and even a household name after Martin Scorsese used their song “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” in 2006. The deceased. But these days, they’ve become better known as the group behind a loud, angry working-class whore aimed squarely at Donald Trump and his acolytes. They went viral for denouncing MAGA fans in the audience and calling the president “the biggest crook in the history of the world.” While their songs and music videos focus more on their old-school-blue values, they have resorted to collaborations with the Guthrie estate, Billy Bragg and Bruce Springsteen to drive home that point.

Casey’s refusal to back down has earned him powerful friends, like Gov. Maura Healey, the chief executive of his home state. “Ken never lost sight of who he is or where he came from,” she tells me, noting that she was a fan long before they met. She named September 25, 2025, Dropkick Murphys Day in Massachusetts, and around the same time, she and her wife, Joanna Lydgate, took Casey, his mother and his girlfriend as personal guests to the gala where he was named Massachusetts Storyteller of the Year. “He is tough, direct, irreverent, loyal and deeply rooted in his community,” adds Healey. “This is something that really affects a lot of people in Massachusetts.”

But it’s not just Massachusetts, or even New England. Across the country, more and more fans identify with Casey’s immense frustration with the current state of our democracy. “Eighty percent of Americans, I think, would say in their heart of hearts, ‘Man, it would be nice if we could get back to some form of dialogue,'” Casey says. “Sometimes I’m the source, and sometimes I’m the one knocking over the guy in the MAGA hat in front of the stage. I’m only human – I don’t get it every time. But it’s better than staying silent.”

A few days earlier, ON A HOT MORNING IN BOSTON, Casey is sitting in the main branch of the public library at Copley Square. The bright and airy lobby houses the live studio of GBH, the city’s public radio affiliate, and hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan chat with Healey for his monthly “Ask the Governor” segment. About 20 retirees, plus a young man wearing a Dropkick Murphys St. Patrick’s Day tour shirt, watch as she answers phone questions about everything from postpartum health care (Lindsay Clancy’s case just ended in a mistrial) to nuclear power, data centers, opioid addiction and the state’s ties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She speaks patiently to each caller, continually reiterating her commitment to defending the civil rights of all citizens, regardless of color, creed or sexual orientation. Toward the end of the segment, Casey joins her to discuss a bill he helped her promote that would cap concert ticket resale prices, as well as the recent debacle involving Ed Sheeran, Macklemore and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

On air, his language is much less profane than on stage, but the message remains just as impactful. “The fact that Ed Sheeran went down on one knee, whatever the cause, and (did not stand) with his tour partner, just doesn’t sit well with me,” he told the audience. “And that’s not how Dropkick Murphys would work.” He appears confident, standing next to his friend the Governor, as well as Eagon and Braude, the latter of whom became something of a mentor as Casey’s public profile grew. He was a guest on their show several times, and even guest-starred a few times. After the segment, as we walk across the street to pick up his car from the hotel valet, he tells me that he hopes to one day start his own radio show, if he can find time among the band’s touring schedule. In the meantime, he is launching a podcast with Michael Fanone, the police officer attacked by rioters on January 6, 2021, and also a long-time fan of the Dropkicks. “He was at the very first DC show we played,” Casey says.

“There are still Nazis in the punk and skinhead scene? Who cares if there are. The president is a fucking Nazi.”

Ken Casey

Casey is a natural podcast host, if only for his voice – what Springsteen would later describe to me as “his real Irish tenor.” He has a warm presence and when he smiles, his eyes narrow behind his cheeks. Although he becomes very serious several times during our conversations, he is quick to laugh and seems excited to meet his fans wherever they show up. Before leaving the library, he says hello to the kid in the Dropkicks shirt; as he collects the car from the valet, one of the doormen asks for a selfie. “My dad is going to be so excited,” he tells Casey, who takes his hand and poses eagerly. He’s the town’s unassuming mascot, a fat divorcee with three grown children, a passion for union politics and Celtic-tinged punk, and an almost pathological drive to stand up for what’s right.

From the moment the Dropkicks emerged in the ’90s, it was as if they had some sort of innate knowledge about how to make a punk band successful. “It almost seemed like they had an adult idea of ​​how to do this thing that we all discovered as kids,” says James Lynch, who joined them as a guitarist when he was 20, but had been playing in Boston punk bands for years. “When the Dropkicks come on stage singing about union work and all that, we’re all singing along, without any idea what they’re talking about. It was just something special from the start.”

In 1996, Casey was newly married, working in construction and tending bar, passing through the local UMass, where he was taking classes…