The Dropkick Murphys Are Selling Their Anti-Nazi Stance on T-Shirts Now

There was a time in American life when it was relatively uncontroversial to suggest that fighting Nazis was a good thing, but that time has passed. While most people still agree that Nazis were bad, it's not the universal opinion it once was. For their part, though, the band Dropkick Murphys have made it clear that they are still firmly opposed to Nazis.

In fact, they even have a t-shirt that bears the band's name as well as the slogan "Fighting Nazis since '96," a suggestion that the band has been opposed to Nazis for decades. Here's what we know about how the shirt came about, and why it's suddenly in the spotlight.

The reason the shirt is in the news is that Michael Fanone, a former Metropolitan Police Officer who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was wearing it when he got into a confrontation with a right-wing conspiracy theorist during a hearing on Capitol Hill. The hearing was to hear the testimony of former special prosecutor Jack Smith, who investigated President Trump's role in the insurrection.

Michael was clearly agitated by Ivan Raiklin and was being physically restrained by fellow officers.

“This guy has threatened my family, threatened my children, threatened to rape my children, you sick bastard,” he says on video of the incident.

Ivan, meanwhile, seemed to mock Michael, suggesting that he was able to keep his temper while Michael had to be restrained.

As the shirt might indicate, Dropkick Murphys have always made politics part of their music, and are taking on the MAGA movement more directly than most musicians. Ken Casey, the band's lead singer, has made a habit of ranting about Donald Trump on stage, and those videos have gone viral more than once.

“People tell me, ‘You didn’t use-ta soapbox like this’,” he told The Guardian. “Well, we didn’t use-ta be in the midst of an authoritarian takeover!”

Ken also thinks that Trump's plans to fix America are simply not going to work.

"Within a year, this country’s gonna fall on its face, and people are gonna feel the pain: recession, inflation, unemployment. There’s nobody coming to save us," he added.

It's clear, then, that the band has always wanted to infuse their music with politics, and that they don't see the two things as separate.

“I talk to the fans every night. One night, an immigrant told me, ‘I moved here, and my partner is American, we have children, and I live in fear of being deported. My own friends have turned on me, they say I’m taking American jobs.’ He was actually in tears at the end. But he said, ‘I feel like someone is speaking on my behalf,'" Ken explained. "From the earliest days of this band, we wanted to be involved in something that mattered. So we are. I wish it was a different subject and not quite so important, but …”