BROOKLIN, Maine — Just over a month ago, before Libby Chamberlain decided to create an invitation-only Facebook group of like-minded Hillary Clinton supporters, she was focused on her two young children, her life as a married millennial in rural coastal Maine, and her career as a college counselor and high school admissions director.
Now, she is attracting national notice as the founder of the skyrocketing, 3.7 million-member- strong “secret” Facebook group Pantsuit Nation. And she is trying to determine how to sustain and channel the group’s energy despite their candidate’s shocking defeat.
“I always felt very passionately that [Hillary Clinton] is a one-in-a-lifetime candidate for president,” Chamberlain said earlier this week, adding that Clinton’s qualifications—not just her gender—set her apart. Now, she said, Pantsuit Nation has “shifted to taking the issues that were important to her campaign and remain critically important to our members and making sure those issues have traction and voice and organization going into this next administration.”
Sitting on a couch in her home nestled in the woods across the road from a blueberry field, Chamberlain, 33, said she was an ardent Clinton supporter throughout the 2016 presidential campaign. But it wasn’t until Oct. 20, the day after Clinton’s final debate with Donald Trump, that she thought of creating Pantsuit Nation.
After chatting online with a friend, Chamberlain created an invitation-only group on Facebook where her friends could talk about why they were supporting the former Secretary of State. Her friends could invite their friends, but everyone had to stick to Chamberlain’s edict: As an antidote to an often poisonously hateful and divisive campaign season, all posts at Pantsuit Nation had to be personal and positive. Attacks on anyone, Trump included, were prohibited.
The Pantsuit Nation moniker was an homage not just to Clinton but to the wardrobe choices women have faced as they have struggled for workplace equality, Chamberlain said. She vowed online to wear a pantsuit when casting her ballot for Clinton and encouraged others to do the same.
Chamberlain sent out a few dozen invitations on Oct. 20. Within hours, Pantsuit Nation’s memberships exploded.
By the time Chamberlain went to bed that night, the group had more than 1,000 members, she said. At the end of the next day, it had more than 24,000. By Election Day, it had more than 2 million— and added another 1 million on that day alone.
By then, Chamberlain and her rapidly assembled team of moderators, who now number 70, were screening thousands of submitted posts each day while trying to motivate their membership to help get out the vote for Clinton.
And then, of course, Clinton lost. In her concession speech, Clinton made a sly reference to Pantsuit Nation, thanking supporters who had “posted on Facebook, even in secret, private Facebook sites.”
Chamberlain said that after the election it took her awhile “to even feel like I had my feet underneath me.” But fairly quickly she decided that “Pantsuit Nation was more important on Wednesday morning than it was on Tuesday morning.”
Pantsuit Nation still has a role to play in promoting women’s equality, she said, and in supporting other groups that historically have faced discrimination.
However, exactly what the group’s future will be beyond its still-vibrant presence on Facebook is unknown, Chamberlain said. She and the group’s other volunteers are exploring options and soliciting professional advice.
“We’re very interested in forming a nonprofit,” Chamberlain said, adding the process usually takes six to nine months. “All the [organizational] infrastructure we’re building underneath us.”
Whether Pantsuit Nation becomes a charitable nonprofit or takes a more overtly political route — as Emily’s List does in bankrolling female candidates who support the right to abortion and the Human Rights Campaign does in advocating with equal rights for LGBTQ people — has not been decided, Chamberlain said.
The group this week released a manifesto in keeping with Chamberlain’s original vision for the Facebook group of providing a upbeat, supportive forum for feminists and people who have been marginalized. Sharing positive, inspirational experiences on issues of public debate will remain a core aspect of Pantsuit Nation’s purpose, according to Chamberlain.
“We remain committed to the idea that storytelling is a form of activism. That will continue to be our focus as a way to provide a platform for people to make the political personal,” Chamberlain said, adding that racial justice, equal rights for women and LGBTQ people, immigrant rights and access to health are among the issues important to Pantsuit Nation.
“When people speak from experience about those things, I believe that is how change is made in our country,” Chamberlain said.
Chamberlain said she has decided this week to quit her job in order to focus on nurturing Pantsuit Nation — in addition to parenting her two young children and serving on the local school board.
She said she has not decided whether to join the Women’s March on Washington scheduled for Jan. 21, the day after Trump will take office. Pantsuit Nation is not involved in organizing the march.
Chamberlain said she remains hopeful about the nation’s future, especially in light of the fact that Clinton won the popular vote.
“One of the things [Pantsuit Nation] has shown me is how strong we are in our diversity,” Chamberlain said. “When you look at a group of this size — 3.7 million people — and you see all of the goodness that is coming out of these people and supporting one another and sharing their own stories, it is hard not to be optimistic.”
