Twitter Reacts To Paul Ryan’s United Republican Government Speech

Today, Congress returned to Washington for the first time since election day. Flush with power after the Republican nominee Donald Trump won the presidential election and the Republican party as a whole maintained control of both houses, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan held a press conference.

During Speaker Ryan’s speech, he welcomed everyone to “the dawn of a new, unified Republican government.”

Political leanings aside, from a pure public relations perspective, that’s not the greatest sound byte ever. In fact, it sounds a bit like something a supervillain might say, and that fact did no go unnoticed by social media. Twitter alone responded with references to a variety of pop culture properties.

Chief among them was Star Wars, where Ryan’s speech was likened to the dawning of the Galactic Empire and the birth of the First Order.

BuzzFeed’s Jarrett Wieselman went for The Hunger Games instead, offering a photo of President Snow in Speaker Ryan’s place. Others went a similar route.

Yet others suggested that America should, perhaps, “be prepared…”

Some were feeling post-apocalyptic…

And for other, the reaction was all in the face…

Speaker Ryan went on to add, “”This will be a government focused on turning President-elect Trump’s victory into real progress for the American people. Our team is very excited, and we cannot wait to get to work. At the same time, we recognize that the task ahead of us is enormous. If we are going to put our country back on the right track, we have got to be bold and we have to go big. This country is expecting absolutely no less.”

However, the “unified Republican government” theme seems to be the one theme, the one blurb, from Speaker Ryan’s first speech fo the new administration that’s really caught fire. That’s quite the start.