COME ON DOWN!
BOCH JR. TO DERSHOWITZ …
Car magnate offers Vineyard refuge to ‘shunned’ Trump-defending attorney
Trump-backing car mogul Ernie Boch Jr. is extending the warm hand of friendship to liberal scholar Alan Dershowitz — who says he’s been ostracized on Martha’s Vineyard by lefty friends for his legal arguments defending President Trump.
“Tell Alan if he needs a friend, he can call me,” Boch told the Herald with a chuckle yesterday from the Vineyard, where both are summering.
Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor emeritus and lifelong Democrat, reports that fellow liberals are “shunning” him, writing in a column for The Hill he has been left off the guest lists for cocktail parties and other high-society events on the island.
“Small-minded partisan zealots on the Vineyard only have one question: Are you with Trump or against him,” a disgruntled Dershowitz told the Herald yesterday.
Boch, who apparently runs with a different crowd, said he’s chumming with pals on both sides of the partisan divide — and Dershowitz is welcome to hang with them. Boch held a high-profile fundraiser for Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“I’m hanging out on Martha’s Vineyard right now with the left and the right,” said Boch, well-known as a fun guy and a great party host. “It doesn’t really affect me.”
He added, “That’s what America is about . ... We went to war over the right to have our own opinions.”
Dershowitz says he doesn’t even support Trump or his policies — he just believes some of the accusations Democrats are leveling against the president are wrong and the investigations targeting Trump are abusive and illegitimate.
Meanwhile, ordinary Trump supporters around Massachusetts — one of the bluest states in the nation — say they’ve also lost friends and had to contend with both acquaintances and strangers calling them out over their politics.
Betty Veneto, owner of Ginger Betty’s Bakery in Quincy, said she’s faced some “aggravated” people when she’s delivered cookies in her car with a Trump sticker.
“It’s a joke, right?” Veneto said one woman asked her. And when Veneto assured her it was not, the woman said, “Oh my God, Betty, I can’t believe it.”
Mary Lou Daxland, president of the staunchly conservative Massachusetts Republican Assembly, said longtime liberal friends have abandoned her since Trump’s election.
“I can sense a strain there,” Daxland said, adding of one childhood friend, “I just have a feeling she doesn’t want to see me anymore.”
Daxland said she believes Democrats are so angry because they thought former President Barack Obama’s eight years had cemented a liberal legacy.
“They just thought they owned it,” Daxland said, “and now you see Trump dismantling all of it.”
Todd Hammond of Oxford said he’s gotten into “a few heated discussions with people,” and once saw an irate man storm out of a diner after hearing his views on Trump.
“If looks could kill ...” Hammond said.
Boston-based constitutional lawyer Harvey Silverglate finds himself in much the same position as Dershowitz: a lifelong liberal who’s defended Trump on civil-libertarian grounds.
“When did you go over to the dark side?” Silverglate said one friend jibed. “The dark side? For God’s sake, I’ve been saying the same thing for 50 years.
“A lot of people believe they have the answer and that’s it,” Silverglate said, adding that’s the case for people on both the far left and far right. “I’m arguing for tolerance.”