The well-heeled residents of Martha's Vineyard are known for their lavish living, posh summer fun, and liberal politics. That has translated into their well-documented love for the Kennedys, the Clintons, and the Obamas — all who have powerful friends and strong roots on the ritzy island off the Massachusetts coast.
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But there are a couple of things Martha's Vineyard residents despise: One would be chain stores and restaurants — and the second is that other president, Donald Trump.
Famed attorney and outspoken liberal Alan Dershowitz is no fan of Trump, but he noted in an op-ed for The Hill that he's been "shunned" by his liberal elite buddies on the island because Dershowitz dared to stand up for Trump's civil liberties.
And for that, some folks near the beaches made famous by "Jaws" have initiated a feeding frenzy.
Walter Teller — a prominent Los Angeles entertainment lawyer and longtime Martha's Vineyard resident — sent an email to Dershowitz and others in their liberal posse and didn't hold back, the Boston Globe reported.
“You ... gave Trump an opportunity to use you and your positions in his own defense, to wave you like his pom-pom. How unfortunate for all of us,” Teller wrote to Dershowitz, the paper said. “You defended and gave cover to this president who relentlessly disrupts and destroys all that we value and causes massive and lasting damage to our political system, our courts, our standing in the world, the environment and more. In all of that you are complicit.”
The Globe said it got Teller's email from one of the many Vineyard residents to whom it was forwarded — and that things got quite personal.
Dershowitz was guilty of a constant desire "to be in the public eye, to have a seat at the table, even if the table is at Fox News, Mar-a-Lago, the White House, with Bibi [Netanyahu]," the paper reported, citing the email.
“You proudly announce where you have dined and with whom, going so far as to send out pictures of the menu of your meal with Trump at the White House,” he added, according to the Globe. “And then you complain publicly when you are not invited to dinner.”
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The Harvard Law professor emeritus responded to Teller’s email just hours later, the paper said: “You admire my stance on civil liberties when it supports your politics, but now that my consistent position may help a president we all oppose, you shun me. Please."
Teller was having none of it, the Globe noted: “There are times when one needs to act on principal. I believe I am doing that. So do you. So there we are and apparently will remain.”
Dershowitz also battled Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Lab and creator of the nonprofit One Laptop per Child, the paper said.
Negroponte chastised Dershowitz for “aiding and abetting and dining with” Trump and accused him of being “complicit” with the president, the Globe reported.
“Well-known 20th century dictators enjoyed the support of public intellectuals,” Negroponte wrote, the paper said. “Rather than ruin parties, porches, and beaches, let’s just not talk because there’s no issue to discuss.”
Dershowitz told Negroponte that One Laptop per Child got at least $2.5 million from Rupert Murdoch of Fox News fame, the Globe reported: “Please don’t lecture me about complicity,” Dershowitz said.
And it appears Dershowitz has no plans to hide in the sand dunes this summer. The paper reached him Tuesday night, and Dershowitz said he was headed to a party thrown by designer Kenneth Cole and his wife, Maria Cuomo.
“I was never lamenting or whining about the fact that people are trying to punish me,” he told the Globe. “I was exposing it. I stand by my principles. I’m very proud of it. I challenge them to have a conversation with me."
MSNBC's Chris Hayes, not surprisingly, didn't quite see things things that way:
