For years, Alan Dershowitz, despite parting ways with Democrats on myriad topics, has steadfastly retained his allegiance to the Democrat party. However, Dershowitz finally hit his breaking point after watching the Democrats’ convention. Even though the Democrats were very careful not to attack Israel during the convention, he noted how open antisemites and people who are viciously anti-Israel were given pride of place in the proceedings. For Dershowitz, this was finally a bridge too far:

(If you don’t want to watch the video, I’ve embedded a slightly cleaned-up transcript at the end of this post.)

Part of me wants to yell at Dershowitz, “What took you so long? You might have made a positive difference to this country if you hadn’t been so wishy-washy and had spoken out strongly in favor of conservative policies and candidates instead of just whining about your own party.”

However, as a former Democrat, I understand how difficult leaving the Democrat party can be.  Republicans think that party allegiance is about the political positions the party espouses. However, this changed in the sixties when the leftists made serious inroads into the Democrat party.

At that point, the Democrat party took on a more Manichean approach to party identification. Today, it’s no longer about whether a party advances policies that will make American life better. Instead, Democrats abandoned the “good policy versus bad policy” framework and replaced it with a “good person versus evil person” framework. That’s reflected in the old Republican saying that Republicans think Democrats are stupid; Democrats think Republicans are evil.

The problem with the Democrats’ Manichean world view is that it’s very difficult to shift party allegiance. It’s one thing to disagree with your party’s practical politics. It’s another thing to say, “I’m going to become evil.” It took me a decade to make the transition. For Dershowitz, who’s been a public Democrat figure for a long time, the change proved to be even harder.

Now that Dershowitz has crossed the Rubicon, I’m going to share this with Democrat Jews I know. They’ve been worried about antisemitism within the party but took renewed hope from the fact that the DNC didn’t directly attack Israel. However, Dershowitz’s point—which is that the DNC subliminally attacked Jews by showcasing antisemites—is a good one, and I hope they take it to heart on November 4.

BRENNER: I want to get to the Democratic National Convention that’s passed. Were you happy with how everything transpired? 

DERSHOWITZ: I was so unhappy. It was the most anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, Anti-Zionist convention I have experienced, and I have been watching conventions since 1952 when Adlai Stevenson [sic]. Let me tell you why this was the worst convention in American history.

They had more anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist people who were speaking, starting with AOC, a miserable anti-Zionist bigot. Then, of course, they had Liz Warren who is one of the most anti-Jewish people in the Senate. Then they had Bernie Sanders, one of the most anti-Jewish people in the Senate. Then to top it off, they have one of the worst anti-Semites in modern American history [on the] last night, at the Convention. And more and more and more. Now. 

BRENNER: Who is that person that they had...that number one? 

DERSHOWITZ: At CNBC [sic, he meant MSNBC], whatever his name is... Sharpton, Reverend Sharpton. You know the guy who provoked the pogrom in Crown Heights after that tragic accidental killing of that young boy, you man.

BRENNER: [Unintelligible.]

DERSHOWITZ: So here’s the way the Democrats figured it out. They’re not going to let these antisemites and anti-Zionists speak about Israel. And they didn’t, you know. They did the pablum about Israel, [they] always supported ceasefire and support a return of the hostages. But they instructed them not to talk about Israel.

But by giving them platforms...what it says is that when AOC does call Israel a genocidal country and rails against it, she now has the imprimatur of the Democratic Party. When Bernie Sanders rails against Israel, he has the imprimatur. When Liz Warren, and when everybody else—and they had so many speakers from the Black Congressional caucus who didn’t attend Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech.

And of course, there wasn’t a single pro-Israel speaker but, okay, I understand that. They didn’t want to have Israel at the center of this. So they didn’t have any pro-Israel [and] they didn’t have any anti-Israel speakers.

But they had people speaking who they legitimated and gave the imprimatur of the Democratic Party who tomorrow will be making speeches and in the past have been making speeches against Israel and against Jews. Obviously, that gives them an imprimatur, and that gives them legitimacy from the Democratic Party.

Then of course, every time I see Shapiro, Josh Shapiro, I understand that if his name was John Shepherd, not Josh Shapiro, he’d have been the Democratic nominee. I don’t think that. Kamala Harris is anti-Semitic. I don’t think that she didn’t Shapiro just because he was Jewish because she doesn’t like Jews.

I think that she got a lot of pressure. We know she got a lot of pressure from the hard left of the Democratic Party. And she knew that if she nominated Josh Shapiro, who would help her win the election by winning Pennsylvania, there would have been demonstrations not only outside but inside the Democratic Convention.  

And then my old friend, president of the United States, who I like, I really like...you know, I’ve known Joe Biden since 1980. I worked with him on Ted Kennedy’s campaign. And he [Biden] had chutzpah to get up there and say that these people outside who were tearing down fences and demanding Hamas and...

BRENNER: ...burning American and Israeli flags American flags...

Speaker 2 

...they have good points. They have good points, and this is after he says, “I’m running for president because Donald Trump said about the people in Charlottesville, ‘there are fine people on both sides.’”  

Well, he didn’t say that. Let’s be very clear about that. I have an op-ed in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal that made that whole thing very clear. He never said that. What he said is he condemns the Neo-Nazis. He condemns the people who said Jews will not replace us. He said there were fine people on both sides of the debate about whether to take down Robert E. Lee’s statue.

I know there are fine people on both sides of that debate because I’m on that side of that debate. I don’t believe we should be destroying statutes. I know there are reasonable alternatives—put them in the museum with an explanation. OK. But there are fine people on both sides of the whole debate about what you do with historical monuments.

But there were no fine people at the debate...stand outside of the Convention Center and screaming “Hamas will win,” screaming “We are all Hamas,” screaming “There was nothing wrong with October 7th.” “What’s wrong with October 7th?” somebody said. No, there aren’t fine people and they don’t make fine points. And so I was disgusted at the Democratic National Convention. Absolutely disgusted.

BRENNER: We’re speaking to Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Avi Dershowitz. So, are you ready to leave the Democratic Party? 

DERSHOWITZ: I have left the Democratic Party I am no longer a Democrat. I am an independent. I’ll decide who to vote for at the last minute based on [the] totality of the circumstances. I want to see how they deal with Iran. I want to see how they deal with Iranian attacks on the United States, I want to encourage the current administration to support Israel, so I’m not revealing my vote until, you know, maybe November 1st, to hear all the information, all the evidence, but I’m no longer a member of the Democratic Party. 

BRENNER: When did you resign the Democratic Party? 

DERSHOWITZ: Well, gradually, over time. I think a lot of things pushed me in that direction: Kamala Harris’s failure to comply with her constitutional obligation to preside over the Senate and the House Joint Sessions for Netanyahu pushed me a lot over that. And what Joe Biden said pushed me over that.

But I think the thing that really pushed me is how the Democrats conducted their convention. I cannot be associated with the party that features as its speakers AOC, Sharpton, Liz Warren, and Bernie Sanders. That’s not my party. 

Image: YouTube screen grab (edited).