Why I left the Democratic Party —and why California voters should, too

I am a lifelong Jewish Democrat and civil libertarian. And I have left the Democratic Party. So should you. 

The question isn’t why I left. The question is why any decent person would stay.

The Democratic Party today is anti-American. It’s anti-Israel. It’s anti-decency. It’s anti-free speech. It’s anti-meritocracy. It’s anti-everything I have stood for all my life, and it’s anti-civility.

I can’t be associated with a party that would nominate Abdul El-Sayed for Senate in Michigan, or which almost nominated a candidate with a Nazi tattoo in Maine. 

If Sen. Susan Collins loses in Maine, there will not be a single Republican in the entire Congress from New England. Not one. Nor any Republican senators from New York, or New Jersey.

The entire East Coast would become Cuba, or perhaps San Francisco, or LA. Then again, California’s congressional delegation still has some political diversity. It’s more balanced than the Northeast.

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The change among Democrats is due to the fact that young people are becoming more involved in politics. Remember, young people brought Hitler to power, and Castro, and Stalin. Young people still have pictures of Che Guevara, a murderer, on their college dormitory walls. 

You can’t trust anybody under 30. That’s a take off on what the UC Berkeley activist Jack Weinberg said in the 1960s: “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” But young people today are destroying the Democratic Party, and they don’t seem to have an interest in the country’s future. 

Look at the students in elite colleges. I’m not only talking about the the Ivy Leagues. I’m talking about the California colleges. I’m talking about Berkeley and Stanford, and UCLA and — to a lesser degree — USC as well.

We’re seeing the radical, anti-civil liberties left dominating campus. These are our future leaders. 

Why are they pro-Palestine? Why should anybody be pro-Palestine?

The Palestinian cause is the worst human rights issue in the history of the world. Palestinians could have had a state in 1947. They turned it down. Instead, they tried to massacre the Jews. They could have had a state in 1967, or 1973. They could have had a state in 2000, and 2001. Ask Bill Clinton. He says it over and over again. They turned down statehood. 

Israel returned Gaza in 2005, and what did the Palestinians do? Instead of creating Singapore on the Mediterranean, they elected Hamas, who then murdered their political rivals. 

How could any decent person be in favor today of a movement that does that — and that opposes women’s rights, gay rights, religious freedom and the right of dissent?

On this issue, California’s own Gavin Newsom, a Democratic frontrunner for president in 2028, has no principles or policies. He holds a finger to the wind. Five years ago, he was pro-Israel. Now he vacillates, and three years from now he will be anti-Israel. 

Remember, too, that several of the other leading candidates for the Democratic nomination president are Jews, and they are also threading the same needle. Even Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, who’s probably the most pro-Israel of all of them, goes out of his way to criticize Israel.

The only really pro-Israel person in the Democratic Party today is Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, and he is an outlier. He can’t win a primary in the Democratic Party. 

In fact, no pro-Israel Democrat today can win a primary in large blue cities, as recent results prove.

The Republican Party also has a problem with antisemitism and anti-Israel candidates, but it has managed to marginalize extremists like Tucker Carlson. The Democrats have welcomed them in. El-Sayed is likely to be the next senator from from Michigan, according to the the polls, and he hangs around with Hasan Piker, with his antisemitic views and claims of “genocide” in Gaza.

There is no plausible case — none — for the claim of of genocide. What’s happened is the word “genocide” has lost all meaning. You have people today who aren’t even sure that the Nazis committed genocide, but are sure that Israel committed genocide. 

I think the Democratic Party today is the most dangerous party in my lifetime. I lived through McCarthyism, and the latter stages of of segregation. But I’ve never lived in a more dangerous time for civil liberties, decency or meritocracy. 

Antisemitism is the biggest civil rights issue in the world today. Jewish or not, whether you support Israel or not, you have to be on the forefront of the fight against anti-Jewish bigotry. 

It is unsafe to be a Jewish Democrat in California unless you loudly proclaim that you’re anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-the Jewish community in general. There is now a tax that only Jews have to pay. The tax takes the form of expensive guards and security units located virtually in every synagogue. You don’t see it in the mosques. They don’t need it. You don’t see it in most churches. We needed it back in the 1950s and 1960s, when black churches were being bombed. Today we need it for Jewish houses of prayer, and schools.

That’s why it’s so important for California Jews to unite in support of Israel and in opposition to the Democrats who are trying to not only destroy Israel but to destroy America.

If we lose the important relationship between Israel and America, America will be far weaker for it.

So, as a pro-American voter, I’m also pro-Israel. And I’m out of the Democratic Party.

Alan Dershowitz is a noted civil libertarian and professor emeritus at Harvard Law School.