Alan Dershowitz, Democrat since 1959, leaves party and registers as a Republican

Alan Dershowitz.

Alan Dershowitz, the famed lawyer and legal scholar who has been a lifelong Democrat, announced in an op-ed Tuesday that he's become a Republican due to the Democrats' increasingly radical rhetoric and policies, and because "the Democratic Party has become the most anti-Israel party in U.S. history."

Dershowitz published the op-ed, titled "Why I'm Becoming a Republican," in The Wall Street Journal, and explained that he registered as a Democrat in 1959 -- 67 years ago. 

"I am a lifelong Democrat. I started campaigning for the party’s local candidates as a teenager in Brooklyn, N.Y., have been a registered Democrat for 67 years, made speeches for John F. Kennedy as a college student, and can count on one hand the number of Republicans I’ve ever supported for any office,” Dershowitz says in the column. “Yet I’ve decided to bite the bullet and register as a Republican.”

Dershowitz says the party's radical turn to the extreme left has pushed him to join the Republican party, despite some disagreements on some of the party's basic platform issues like abortion, health care and taxes.

"I believe that the Democratic Party's hostility to Israel represents a deeper and more dangerous shift away from the center toward a radical approach that is bad for America and the free world," Dershowitz wrote in the piece. "So I intend to work hard to prevent the Democrats from gaining control of the House and Senate."

Dershowitz formally left the party back in November, in the days before Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City, warning that a Mamdani victory in New York would augur an erosion of American values across other U.S. cities in the future. He rose to fame in the 1990s as a member of O.J. Simpson's "dream team" of lawyers, and in more recent years has drawn criticism from some on the left for defending the constitutionality of some of President Trump's policies as well as his ties to Epstein.  

Dershowitz sounded the alarm on the modern Democrat party in the op-ed, urging others who feel as he does to vote against the party in the coming midterm elections. "Until something changes, I will vote Republican for representative, senator and president," Dershowitz said.  

Dershowitz appeared on The Rubin Report in 2020, just days before the election to discuss that and the Supreme Court nomination and confirmation process. During that appearance, Dave introduced Dershowitz as "one of the last sane liberals around." Read Dershowitz's full op-ed here, and watch his appearance on The Rubin Report from 2020 below. 

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