16 OCTOBER 2019 THE ATLANTICDISPATCHESN THE AFTERNOON
of July 3, the day before President Don-
ald Trump’s rained-on Independence
Day celebration (or “show of a lifetime,”
depending on whose Twitter feed you
look at), a small but committed group left
a wharf in Washington, D.C., for a cruise
on the Potomac.
In 2016, we learned that the Trump
coalition was broader than many had
assumed: the hold-your-nose-vote-your-
pocketbook one- percenters; the subur-
ban soccer moms who, when it came
down to it, were a little skittish about
immigration. But the 200-some-odd
passengers aboard the Spirit of Washing-
ton were emphatically not those people—
this was a Trump-campaign- rally crowd
in full flower. Women carried evening
clutches with MAGA spelled in rhine-
stones; one guest was literally wrapped in
the flag, the stars portion knotted at her
neck, the rest wafting in the waterfront
breeze like Superman’s cape. There were
“Bikers for Trump,” “Cowboys for Trump,”
a woman peddling 24-karat-gold-plated- SKETCH
SHE DOESN’T BELIEVE ALL WOMEN
Juanita Broaddrick, who alleges that
Bill Clinton raped her in 1978, has found
new life as a Trump defender.BY AMANDA FITZSIMONSTrump-hologram novelty bills for $
(proceeds, she explained, would go to
defeating Representative Ilhan Omar).
And yet the woman of the hour, the
person with whom just about everyone
wanted to take a selfie, was a 76-year-old
grandmother named Juanita with a heart-
shaped face and a cascade of blond curls
wrangled into a ponytail; on her navy
sheath, she wore a TRUMP 2020 pin no
bigger than American Airlines wings.
Before she even reached the check-in
desk at the pier, she was approached for
a picture by a statuesque woman in her
early 30s wearing a sundress and a MAGA
hat. “I know you from Fox
News,” the woman said.
Another woman told her,
“I just love your Twitter—I
have it open on my phone
right now.” A man who
said he was running for
Congress against Califor-
nia’s Adam Schiff made
sure they swapped con-
tact info—it was clear he
wanted her endorsement.
Throughout the three-hour trip, she
was polished and patient and gracious.
At the same time, she seemed a little
un comfortable with all the fuss. When we
were back on dry land, I asked how many
people she thought had wanted to take
a selfie with her, and she looked embar-
rassed. “Oh, no more than 30,” she said,
undoubtedly undercounting her fans.O
UTSIDE OF TRUMP’S BASE, the
name Juanita Broad drick may stir
only muddled memories—wasn’t she
one of the women not named Monica
Lewinsky who accused Bill Clinton of
something? Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey,
Gennifer Flowers—their stories can blur,
but each of these women has a distinct
set of allegations, and Broad drick’s are
the most serious. She says Clinton raped
her in 1978, when he was the attorney
general of Arkansas and she was a volun-
teer for his gubernatorial campaign. She
did not report the alleged crime to the
police; in fact, Broad drick’s name wasn’t
made public until two decades later, via
a 1998 court filing in the Paula Jones case.
(Clinton denied the allegations.) Even
though Broad drick did some press—once
she’d been outed, she wanted the chance
to share her perspective—the story didn’t
stick to the Clinton legacy the way Lewin-
sky’s has. At the time, her claims were
mostly ignored, and when acknowledged
they were often dis paraged; the fact that
she’d recanted in an affidavit after being
subpoenaed by Jones’s lawyers was a
favorite data point of critics. (Broad drick
says she denied that anything had hap-
pened with Clinton because she didn’t
want to get involved in a big legal circus
with Jones.)
But the worst part of the aftermath had
already happened by then, Broad drick told
me. Clinton had been the leader of the free
world for five long years. “Just seeing him
on TV, it was constant. I don’t know who
got to be the quickest, my husband or me,switching the channel,” she said. She even
ended up going to an earlier church service,
because at her usual one the priest had
taken to asking congregants to pray for the
president. “I had to sit in church, down on
my knees, and be told that I am to pray for
Bill Clinton.”
By the early aughts, she’d faded into
relative obscurity and basically movedThe gulf between
Broaddrick’s social-media
persona and her actual
one is especially wide.