“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say ‘Get that sonofabitch off the field, out, right now, he’s fired. He’s fired.’” – President Donald J Trump

DAVE Zirin came into Free State podcast during the week. He is a famous American Jew. He works for The Nation and is a renowned American football writer and broadcaster.

Dave: In Dublin, people can breathe freely. Writers can write without being fired. You can say you are against the genocide in Gaza. We cannot do that in the US.

Dion Fanning: I just want to check you got back into America okay

Dave: While I was here, JD Vance, a serial liar who once called Donald Trump America’s Hitler, issued a threat against my workplace for the crime of directly quoting Charlie Kirk. So I hired lawyers and had the number of a prominent Irish politician written on my arm in a sharpie in case I got detained. I got through security, but my heart was pounding.

Joe: Charlie, according to Fox News, is Superman. They described him as a man of steel and had a surgeon quoted saying that this bullet should have gone through him and killed multiple people. That Charlie Kirk is a hero who even in death saved many others, which is symbolic of his life.

Dave: The spookiest thing was the hologram of him that appeared on stage at his memorial, which looked like The Nazi Party’s Nuremberg Rallies. There were compulsory tributes to this far right racist, a guy who mocked disabled people, in NFL stadiums. Which was a major slap in the face to the 70% of players who are black. The NFL wasn’t just telling fans who to mourn, it was also a “hey black players, go f*** yourself.”

Dion: The NFL is coming to Dublin this weekend…

Dave: Yes, as part of its US empire sports washing operation. I cannot believe your government gave an organisation worth hundreds of billions of dollars €10 million for the privilege. The NFL is here to plant a flag. It is a hostile invasion of Croke Park. It is an abomination, not just in terms of the GAA’s community ties and history, but also in terms of you guys having maintained the true ethos of sport through amateurism. Croke Park is a sacred space and these frankly horrible human beings who run NFL teams are desecrating it.

Joe: No wonder they want to deport you!

Dave (laughing): Mark Wolf is the owner of the Vikings who are playing on Sunday. He is not just pro Israel but heads up an organisation whose goal is the support of the Israeli state and government. It is a project of ethnic cleansing, a project of genocide. And herehe is swaggering around Croke Park, an affront to what Ireland and your people stand for.

Dion: In your documentary ‘Behind the Shield’ you trace the origins of the NFL becoming the sportswasher of US imperialism to the Vietnam War

Dave: Black America was overwhelmingly against the war. Muhammad Ali, the most famous black man on the planet, was punished severely by the US establishment because he refused to kill Vietnamese civilians, 2 million of whom died in the genocide. Nixon turned to the NFL to promote the war, to differentiate in his words, “Real Americans from the hippies and haters of America.” Since then, the NFL embodies the settler, colonialist, white supremacist America.

Joe: It is amazing how effective western propoganda has been in painting the US as the good guy. Like Superman, the protector of the downtrodden and the moral compass of the world.

Dave: Absolutely. The government of this country now, and quite frankly, since the 1940s, has been utterly criminal. This is what the GAA and Ireland is promoting with Sunday’s game. It’s not a game. It’s a propaganda exercise.

Joe: It’s working? The Taoiseach and Tanaiste tweeting messages of condolence for Charlie Kirk, the Aontu leader calling it a dark day for democracy, far right politicians calling for a minute’s silence in Croke Park on sunday to honour his memory. Conor McGregor the poster boy for MAGA in Ireland.

Dave: Except you guys have the good sense not to elect him as president, because we do that to our sex offenders. I got to tell you guys, it’s so disgusting. You’re right. Nobody should die by violence, whether in rural Utah, where Charlie Kirk died, or Gaza, where children are being killed by the tens of thousands. Or school shootings in the United States that are rampant. We are the United States of anxiety and the United States of violence. The NFL’s slogan is ‘Football is America, and they are coming to Ireland. This is why Irish people have every right to be nervous, to be upset. So if you don’t stand up, if Ireland doesn’t stand up, the parasitic nature of the relationship will only increase. And you may get some bluster about pulling investment, but give me a break.

Joe: It’s a grift?

Dave: Exactly. It is connecting with a very real cynicism in the United States that’s been earned over 30 years of deindustrialization, corruption and political lies while they do these flowery pronouncements about the glories of the Constitution. So in Trump, you have someone who comes in and he’s just like, yeah, you’re damn right it’s all a grift and it was a grift before me and it’s a grift now, but at least with me, you’re getting the straight grift. And Americans, on some level really like that.

Dion: Really? Americans like that?

Dave: Many of them do. I view it in terms of the adoration the US has developed for mob movies over the last 30 years. Like this idealization of the Tony Soprano, this idealization of Goodfellas. You might remember the scene where the goodfellas take over the bar. It starts well. The owner is delighted. And then it’s just fuck you, pay me. Fuck you, pay me. And then when they’ve bled the bar dry, they set it on fire and get the insurance. So there’s no desire to build anything, only a desire to destroy and pick the meat off whatever bones are left. This is exactly what Trump is doing.

Joe: We had Michael Lewis, the great author on the podcast. The baseball commissioner asked him how do we bring fans back to baseball. Lewis wrote back to him, ”I suggest that during a game, you open a gate in the stadium and release a wild savannah lion onto the pitch, with a good chance it will eat one of the players.’ Lewis’ point is that violence is now central to the American psyche.

Dion: Is there a stronger metaphor for that than a UFC cage on the lawn of the White House?

Dave: It’s a great point. Trump’s able to get away with this in part because he’s mocking everything that this country stands for. And our country has been awash in cynicism for so long that he has a very open audience. And of course it’s disgusting. You know, we’re going to celebrate the Constitution with a UFC match. I mean, what is this, ancient Rome? Caligula? If Trump announced there was going to be a sex show in the ring between contests he would get away with that too. The US people are being dumbed down and brutalised. We are becoming immune to violence and hatred.

Joe: It’s not just a US thing. It is sweeping the planet.

Dave: It is. Tommy Robinson, of course, Reform UK, Orbán’s Hungary. This axis of authoritarianism is very real. The United States, though, is the leader of it.

Dion: Is there any room for optimism?

Dave: Absolutely. One of the things that’s now unmasked in the United States is that Jewish support for the state of Israel and the dispossession of the Palestinians is at historic lows, to the point that the most pro-Palestinian candidate to run for office, perhaps in my lifetime, Zohran Mamdani in New York, now has the plurality of Jewish support in the city, which is a remarkable thing, given that he has pledged to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he comes to town. As a Jew, I can say there is a massive generational gap. Most Jews under 30 are on Palestine’s side. Israel is viewed as an out of control apartheid state. The US government is funding and supporting a genocide. My country is an absolute train wreck going off a cliff and taking a good section of the world with it.

Joe: What’s the solution?

Dave: Turn the US into a pariah nation.

Joe: When you are deported, you can come and live with us in Mayo.

Dave: I would do that in a heartbeat. Ireland is what all countries should be. You need to fight to keep the NFL out, stand up to the US government and hold on to your values. Otherwise you might end up as just another US colony.

Dave Zirin’s documentary film ‘Behind the Shield’ is currently on general release.