To the Editor:

Re “A Frosty Summer for Dershowitz on Liberal Martha’s Vineyard” (front page, July 4):

Alan Dershowitz complains that “I never thought I would see McCarthyism come to Martha’s Vineyard, but I have” — because he is being shunned by some people on the Vineyard for expressing views that support President Trump.

It is an insult to the pernicious virulence and exceptional odiousness of McCarthyism for Mr. Dershowitz, the lawyer and professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, to compare his mild experience to it.

No one is making false allegations against him or accusing him without evidence of treachery. No one is threatening to imprison him if he doesn’t denounce his friends. No one is denying him a living or threatening to harm him.

What these people in Chilmark, Mass., are doing is disapproving of his chosen activities, which is their right and perhaps their obligation. They merely stopped socializing with him. He’ll live.