As analysts crunch the numbers and figure out what the election results really tell us, for one group, a Donald Trump presidency is especially disappointing. It’s a Maine-based group that has become more of a movement on Facebook now with 3 million-plus members, ardent Hillary Clinton supporters, known as Pantsuit Nation.
When we called Alyne Cistone, a member of Pantsuit Nation, it was clear that the results of the presidential election have left her reeling.
“I’m just… I’m upset, angry, if you wanted to know the truth… sorry,” she says.
For her, as with so many others in the group, the stakes felt higher this time.
“You hope that even in our divide that people will stand for the values that unite us as human beings. And to reward someone who has openly talked about policies that he would initiate on Day One that would divide the country even further, is just hard to wrap your brain around,” Cistone says.
Those sentiments are being echoed all over the diverse Pantsuit Nation group. Cistone has lived in Maine for six years, but she comes from Kenya and is the mother of two biracial children.
That’s a common theme on the site: parents concerned that their children will no longer have a role model in the White House. One of Cistone’s own posts was about her son being bullied at school.
“So you want to teach your kids that if you are a bad person, there are consequences… but now it does not feel that way,” she says.
The posts on Pantsuit Nation are diverse. Some are same-sex couples worried their right to marry might be under threat. Some are parents of disabled children, afraid that the social climate has become one that rewards name calling and bullying. And others are victims of sexual assault aghast that allegations of Donald Trump’s own sexual aggression were given an apparent pass.
“One of the reasons that it really took off, is that it didn’t exist before — that sort of forum that was open to people sharing their own stories and their own voices, without fear of being negatively attacked,” says Pantsuit Nation creator, Libby Chamberlain of Brooklin, Maine.
As of Thursday, the group, which had started last month with just a few of Chamberlain’s family and friends as a way of supporting Clinton, had blossomed to 3.2 million. On Wednesday, in her concession speech, Clinton herself acknowledged the group in her thank you list.
“Organizers who knocked on doors, talked to neighbors. Posted on Facebook — even in secret, private Facebook sites — I want everybody coming out from behind that and make sure your voices are heard going forward,” she said.
The pantsuit is a bittersweet symbol for gender equality, a reminder that women had to fight not just for the right to vote, but for the right to pursue a career alongside men. In fact, pants could, and did, get a woman arrested as late as 1938.
For this group that acknowledges the pantsuit and all that it has come to represent, a Trump presidency seems like a giant leap backward. But Chamberlain says it’s not over.
“Even though the result of the election was not what we all hoped, we now have this group to sort of harness the energy and hopefully do some really good things over the next few years, as we are faced with a leadership that doesn’t reflect our values,” she says.
Cistone says she still has not talked to her Kenyan family about the results of the election. She will, she says. And she’s also trying to be optimistic and give president-elect Trump a chance to prove he can be a good leader.
Till then, it’s one pant leg in front of the other.
