About

Paul Ryan's Gavel Bang is a series of image macros and jokes that referencing Speaker of the House Paul Ryan's banging of the gavel to declare the passage of the Tax Cuts and Job Acts of 2017.

Origin

On December 19th, 2017, the House of Representatives passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, a piece of legislature that Speaker Ryan has enthusiastically championed. After the house passed the bill, Ryan, as is his duty, banged the gavel to declare the bill passed (video below).^[1]

Spread

Shortly after the video of the gavel banging was posted online, people began joking about the gavel falling off the table, personifying the gavel as trying to escape Ryan and the bill, which polling has found to be unpopular amongst the American public.^[2] That day, Twitter ^[3] user @markgongloff posted a gif of the moment with the caption "That's a little on the nose, House gavel." The post (shown below) received more than 600 retweets and 1,800 likes in less than 24 hours.

Throughout the day, people continued to joke about how the gavel disagreed with Ryan's support of the policy, that it's falling off the bench was it trying to escape (examples below).

Twitter published a Moments^[4] page regarding the joke to commemorate and archive the popularity of the gavel escaping.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References