Overview

Melanie Stansbury's "This Is Not Normal" Sign refers to a protest sign reading "This is NOT Normal" held by Democratic U.S. representative Melanie Stansbury before President Donald Trump made a speech in front of Congress, which was filmed being torn from her hands by Rep. Lance Gooden. The sign echoes a statement made by Stansbury in early February 2025 when she spoke against Trump, Elon Musk and the state of the government at the House of Representatives in a now-viral video. The sign incident happened on March 4th, 2025, inspiring online discourse and memes in the following days.

Background

Melanie Stansbury's "This Is Not Normal" speech

On February 11th, 2025, the day before the first hearing of the D.O.G.E. subcommittee, Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico uploaded a video to her TikTok^[1] page (@repstansbury) of herself speaking at the House of Representatives.

In the video, she questions where her "Republican colleagues" are, claiming none are in attendance. She criticizes them further, saying that Trump, Musk and their "group of teenage hackers" are "dismantling the federal government," but not a single Representative is on the house floor that afternoon. She then says, "Let me say to the American people, this is not normal." She goes on to criticize the Trump administration and Trump himself for dismantling federal agencies, firing thousands of government workers, freezing federal funds and hacking people's data with his "group of teenage software hackers."

She continued, saying that Musk and Trump are "breaking the law daily inside of these agencies" and stated they're violating the constitution, claiming there are 55 cases pending in court to try and stop Musk and Trump. Stansbury then talks about how the Democrats are fighting for the people and again questions where the Republicans are and criticizes them for purportedly stopping Musk from speaking before Congress.

As the video continues, she proceeded to criticize the Trump administration and Republicans for letting Musk "raid the federal treasury." The video gained over 5.8 million views in a month.

Melanie Stansbury's "This Is Not Normal" Sign

On March 4th, 2025, Melanie Stansbury was seen in the crowd with a small sign reading "This is NOT Normal" before President Trump got on stage to make a speech before Congress at the U.S. Capitol. As Trump walks by, Rep. Lance Gooden of Texas tears the sign from her hands and throws it in the air.

Images of Stansbury holding the sign were uploaded by several X^[2][3] users that night, with the first known video of the full incident being uploaded by X^[4] user @JordanUhl minutes later, garnering over 2,900 likes in a day.

The @CSPAN X^[5] account uploaded a longer version of the video minutes later, garnering over 9,000 likes in a day.

Developments

The video of the incident and images of Stansbury holding the sign went viral across social media the night it happened.

For example, the video was posted to the subreddit /r/popculture^[6] on the night of March 4th, 2025, garnering over 45,000 upvotes in a day.

Also that night, Stansbury posted the image of herself holding the sign to X,^[7] writing, "This is not normal," garnering over 105,000 likes in a day.

The video was widely reported on by the media following the address, including outlets like USA TODAY^[8] and the Washington Post.^[9]

Online Reactions

The sign inspired a variety of reactions on social media, with many on the left showing support for Stansburys and many on the right mocking her.

On March 4th, 2025, podcaster and commentator Steven Crowder quoted Stanbury's post on X,^[10] writing, "You're Un-American," garnering over 5,000 likes in a day. In response, the X^[11] gimmick account @RightWingCope posted, "And is beating your pregnant wife is American, Steven?" garnering over 23,000 likes and ratioing Crowder.

That same night, X^[12] user @robinder14 posted a compilation of what they believed were bad representations of purported Democrats and leftists, garnering over 3,000 likes in a day.

Memes

The image of the sign also inspired memes, including photoshops and posts sharing jokes about the sign similar to precursor memes like Donald Trump's White Sign and Fauci Holding Paper.

For example, on March 4th, 2025, X^[13] user @stoolpresidente posted the image, writing, "Is the lady holding the 'This is not normal' sign referring to the posture of the lady in teal?" garnering over 21,000 likes in a day.

That same night, X^[17] user @IfindRetards posted a photoshop of the image in which the sign reads, "I am retarded," garnering over 38,000 likes in a day.

Numerous additional photoshops were posted as quote-replies to Stansbury's X^[14][15][16] post, although none garnered significant traction in the following 24 hours.

Search Interest

External References