My Impeachment-Viewing Dream Team
Getting these highly combustible personalities in the same room to view the most divisive event in recent memory is the perfect recipe for pure, unmitigated chaos.
Mom — After taking a leave of absence from her job to focus more closely on the progress of the Dems’ impeachment process (I’m totally obsessed, hon), Mom has been watching MSNBC for an average of 11.4 hours per day and railing against the president (He makes me want to spit, hon) while simultaneously lamenting what could have been (Poor Hillary got rooked, hon. She got rooked.). She blames Trump for everything from the state of the country to the dissolution of her marriage.*
*The latter was caused, at least in part, by Mom’s obsession “with this sh*t” (i.e., the MSBNC coverage of Trump.)
Uncle Butch — One of the few remaining Americans who still believes “Pizzagate” was real, Uncle Butch has a “Lock Her Up” poster, which features “Killary Clinton” behind bars, prominently displayed in his mancave, an elaborate addition to his house funded by the settlement he received after a Tastykake truck ran over his Gout-ridden foot. Uncle Butch is fond of saying, Think about it, how much do we really know about [insert things we always really know lots and lots about]? and rarely sees eye-to-eye with other civilians on issues of politics, religion and snack-food etiquette. His already-strained relationship with Mom was exacerbated further after he “mistakenly” climbed into bed with her at the end of one of the Berda’s infamous 4th of July parties. (To this day, Butch claims he thought it was his wife, Mom’s sister Maria, in the bed). Maria swears there’s unresolved sexual tension between Butch and Mom, a tension that manifests itself in heated discussions about politics and cheese plates.
Mema Perkins — The recent impeachment push combined with a mild cognitive decline frequently leads Mema to confuse what’s happening now with the time period during late 90s in which Bill Clinton was impeached. While Mema is generally referring to a different “Commander-in-Creep” when she screams at her T.V. set during these memory lapses, more often than not comments like, This p@$$y-grabbing prick is a textbook example of a predator — how do these people not see this? are eerily applicable to the current one.
Cousin Kyle — A 20-year-old Penn State student who’s currently “Undecided” on his major, Kyle often shows up to family gatherings a little too high and struggles to keep it together. During the third debate of the 2016 presidential election, which happened to be held during Mema’s 80th birthday party, Kyle famously suffered a panic attack during a heated argument between Mom and Uncle Butch.
Ian the Independent — the longtime boyfriend of Maria’s daughter, Aubrey, Ian begins all impeachment-related conversations with phrases like, As an independent, I think what we’re witnessing right now is the death of the two-party system and … or I’m going to say something unpopular here. As an independent, I think people fail to factor in this country’s checkered history with quid pro quo … When family members get sick of Ian’s monologues and ask when he’s going to marry Aubrey, he always responds with I don’t believe in the institution of marriage, before retiring outside to chain-smoke hand-rolled cigarettes.
Emma Bean (and her imaginary friend ‘Ghostie’) — The precocious 4-year-old granddaughter of Maria, Emma Bean believes the theatrics of the current impeachment push are distracting the public from the wholesale environmental deregulation that poses a dire existential threat to her generation and argues fervently with Ghostie, a self-described next-gen Republican (aka, a GOPler) and entity visible only to Emma Bean, about the dangers of unchecked capitalism while family members look on with concerned smiles. The ability of Emma Bean and Ghostie to remain friends in spite of their diametrically opposed worldviews is an inspiration to us all. Uncle Butch wishes Ghostie was his niece.
Ian Ziering — A charming actor who first gained notoriety for Beverly Hills, 90210, Ian has an uncanny ability to effortlessly steer all politically charged conversations back to his brave decision to take a gamble on Sharknado and how what he learned from the move applies directly to the current state of the country (Don’t you get it? We’re all the sharks, man!) Ian Ziering’s already-strained relationship with Mom was exacerbated further after he “mistakenly” climbed into bed with her at the end of one of the Berda’s infamous 4th of July parties. (To this day, Ian Ziering claims he thought it was Jason Priestly in the bed.) Maria swears there’s unresolved sexual tension between Ian Ziering and Mom.
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