Authored by Jonathan Turley,
Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz appears to be living through a remake of the Seinfeld Soup Nazi episode. However, Dershowitz is facing a new culinary menace in Martha’s Vineyard. Chef Krem Miskevich has barred the famed lawyer from buying pierogis because of his political views . . . and liberals are applauding him for it. Welcome to Pierogi Politics, it is the same distasteful politics that is tearing apart this country . . . only with an added carbo load.
Dershowitz has previously described how his liberal neighbors, who were friendly when he was advancing liberal causes, have blacklisted him in the elite community due to his defense of Donald Trump.
He is treated as a persona non grata and shunned by the wealthy community.
Now the blacklisting has extended to food. Dershowitz would regularly go to the West Tisbury Farmers Market and buy food from the Good Pierogi. Then Miskevich decided to join the mob and bar him from eating.
Miskevich (who goes by pronouns “they” and “them”) also accused Dershowitz of misgendering by referring to “him” in passing (Dershowitz said that he would happily use his preferred pronouns). However, Miskevich admits it is his political and legal views that led him to blacklist the professor.
Dershowitz is now pursuing legal action against the West Tisbury Farmers Market and posted a statement on his YouTube channel last week, stating “He didn’t approve of my politics so he wouldn’t serve me.”
Dershowitz suggested that the initial rejection may have been due to his wearing a pro-Jewish T-shirt. In his initial encounter, he had reminded the vendor that Massachusetts law prohibits refusing service based on race, religion or sexual orientation: “You couldn’t say I don’t serve black people, you couldn’t say I don’t serve gay people, you couldn’t say I don’t serve Jews.”
The police were called in the incident and led Dershowitz away.
Miskevich has thrilled the left by venting his hate for Dershowitz and anyone who holds his political or legal views:
“When he came to our booth, I experienced a surge of emotion. As a chef, I love to share what I cook with the public, regardless of who they are. In this case, what was in the forefront of my mind was the fact that this was the high-profile attorney who represented several sexual predators and abusers including Jeffrey Epstein.”
Dershowitz is entirely in the right here, and the treatment that he received was outrageous. What is chilling is how hate is now celebrated on the left as a perverse type of virtue signaling.
We have seen how the left has embraced blacklisting, an abuse that was once associated with the McCarthy period. In 1950, columnist and civil libertarian Max Lerner penned a chilling prediction in the New York Post about the Red Scare: “There is a hate layer of opinion and emotion in America. There will be other McCarthys to come who will be hailed as its heroes.”
It turns out it would come from the left. From the start of the first Trump Administration, restaurants refused to serve well-known Republicans and their families.
Calls for blacklisting have come from city councils to public interest groups. Others called for banning those “complicit” from college campuses, while still others demanded a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to “hold Trump and his enablers accountable for the crimes they have committed.” Daily Beast editor-at-large Rick Wilson added his own call for “humiliation,” “incarceration,” and even ritualistic suicides for Trump supporters in an unhinged, vulgar column.
Writers and editors have joined blacklisting efforts targeting Trump supporters, conservative justices, and authors like JK Rowling for their political views. It is all part of the Orwellian logic of the left, intolerance in the name of tolerance, blacklisting in the name of free speech.
We have also seen lawyers increasingly targeted by the left for their clients, a tactic once used against liberal lawyers representing unpopular criminal or civil clients. That includes the successful targeting of a Harvard professor for representing Weinstein. Many leading lawyers helped fund the Lincoln Project in its national effort to harass and abuse any lawyers representing the Republican party or President Trump.
This week, President Trump even had to sign an executive order to deter “debanking” where financial institutions discriminate on the basis of political or religious views.
Now, back to Dershowitz. Liberals are applauding the denial of food to people who do not share their political views. Indeed, Miskevich is parading and posturing like the MLK of Martha’s Vineyard for joining the mob against a single, unpopular neighbor. Instead of treating food as a basis for shared dialogue and exchange, Miskevich wants to weaponize it to use against those who dare to hold opposing views.
What is particularly striking is how these are many of the same people who insisted that a Colorado baker should be required to make cakes that violate the owner’s religious and free speech rights. In Masterpiece Cakeshop and later cases like 303 Creative, the left hounded business owners for refusing to sell products that celebrated same-sex marriages. They were outraged that such denials are hateful and intolerant.
However, in Masterpiece Cakeshop, the owner insisted that he would sell cakes to same-sex couples and anyone else coming into his store. He only drew the line at preparing cakes expressly celebrating same-sex marriages as an expressive act that violated his core beliefs.
In this case, Miskevich is refusing to sell pre-made pierogi based on a political litmus test. It is not clear that this violates the law, but it is wrong. If Dershowitz asked Miskevich to cater a pierogi-based party in celebration of Trump, I would support his right to decline as a matter of free speech given his dislike for conservatives. However, this is the denial of service for pre-made pierogis based on viewpoint discrimination.
There is little doubt that Miskevich will haul in customers by pandering to the mob. The only thing that is more enticing today than the love for good food is the hate for opposing views. The problem is that feeding on hate will never satiate people; they simply want more servings. That insatiable appetite is destroying this country and now Miskevich is contributing to it one pierogi at a time.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of the best-selling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,”
