Ugh, it’s so embarrassing when your dad finds out about something six months late, isn’t it? And then, to make things worse, he goes to Kinko’s and makes a big old poster board with one of his dumb jokes that’s so August 2016 on it, and then he goes and presents it to Congress. God. That’s if your dad is Democratic House member David Cicilline, representative of Rhode Island’s first congressional district and former mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, of course.


Cicilline brought his dad-joke skills to the House floor earlier today, when he used an extended Stranger Things reference to mark his displeasure with the ever-growing Katamari of national shame that is the Trump administration. His “Trump Things” poster freshly printed out from the Stranger Things type generator at his side, he began: “Mr. Speaker, like the main characters in Stranger Things, we are now stuck in the Upside Down. Right is wrong, up is down, black is white.”

After specifically citing the firing of former National Security advisor Mike Flynn, the Trump administration’s ties to Russia, and Flint, Michigan’s ongoing clean-water crisis, he went on: “Mornings might be for coffee and contemplation, but Chief Jim Hopper is not coming to rescue us.” That image painted in his colleagues’ cash-addled minds, he added: “Like Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Eleven, we must remain focused on the task at hand and hold this administration accountable so we can escape from our own version of the Upside Down.”


You could interpret the newly renewed threat of nuclear war as an ‘80s reference of sorts, so well done, Rep. Cicilline.