Your Official Drinking Game For De Blasio's First Democratic Presidential Debate

TONIGHT: De Blasio Debates

At 9 p.m. tonight, New York City’s own Mayor Bill de Blasio will stand at the edge of a debate stage in Miami and attempt to win the hearts and minds of America. He'll be joined by nine other presidential hopefuls—including Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, and Cory Booker—and collectively they will no doubt engage in a substantive policy discussion about the most pressing issues facing our country. Or maybe we'll get another candidate pile-up, followed by a few hours of political chest-thumping and pre-canned zingers that will be fully irrelevant once the actual election rolls around 495 days from now. Tough to say.

Either way, the Democratic primary debate is the mayor's best chance yet to make his case for the White House—and to hoist himself out of a polling hole that has left him at or near the bottom of a 24-candidate pack. He is admittedly "a little nervous" about this opportunity, and recently began soliciting advice from his son/consultants posing as his son about how to best establish credibility on stage.

We're not in the business of advising the mayor (if we were, we might suggest adding some policy positions to his website?), but our advice to you is that you're really under no obligation to watch this debate. There will be nearly a dozen more of these, and it is frankly insane that American election campaigns last as long as they do. But if you are planning on tuning in, you might as well try to enjoy some of it. With that in mind, we present The Mayor Bill de Blasio Drinking (& Other Fun Activities) Debate Game (better make it a seltz).

HOW TO PLAY:

TAKE A SIP OF YOUR DRINK IF HE SAYS ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:

"Brother"

"Human reality"

"Oppa-toonity"

"Safest big city in America"

"Plenty of money it's just in the wrong hands"

"I reject the premise"

TAKE ONE SHOT every time he says "Con Don*;" TAKE TWO SHOTS if he says "Conald Donald"; TAKE THREE SHOTS if he says "Conald Dump"

CHUG A HIGH-LIFE AND SKANK if he mentions ska music

POP THREE RICOLAS if he shows up with an excessively distracting mouth-lubricating lozenge, 2016-style

DRINK A THIMBLE OF MILK if he has to awkwardly bend down so he's more visible on camera

TAKE A SMALL HIT OF THE BONG if he brags about his support for legalized marijuana despite opposing it until last year, long after most Democrats had already gotten on board

TAKE A LARGE HIT OF THE BONG if he refers to his NYC Ferry system as "mass transit"

TOSS YOUR PIZZA SLICE AT THE SCREEN if he misstates Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's comments on concentration camps

BURN A TANK OF GASOLINE if he touts Vision Zero without acknowledging that the city's fleet of cars has expanded by 19 percent under his watch, that immigrant delivery workers on e-bikes are targeted daily by his police force, or that more cyclists have been killed this year in New York City than in all of 2018

LICK A SUBWAY POLE if any other candidate fails to understand that Governor Andrew Cuomo controls the MTA

TAKE TWO IBUPROFEN if he says "guaranteed health care for all New Yorkers" to make his expansion of existing services for 600,000 city residents sound like universal health care

TUG YOUR COLLAR AND TAKE A BATHROOM BREAK TO AVERT YOUR GAZE FROM BRUTAL PUBLIC EMBARRASSMENT if Senator Elizabeth Warren articulates better, catchier, more fleshed out plans of the mayor's central platform

SIT THROUGH ALL TWO HOURS OF THIS AND SHED A SINGLE TEAR knowing that your mayor wants to participate in eleven more of these debates and countless other trips out of town instead of fulfilling his duties to the nearly nine million people he was elected to govern

*What, you're dead now? How do you think that groundhog feels, huh!?