Peggy Flanagan won a Senate seat in Minnesota Tuesday night. Then she grabbed a microphone in St. Paul and started tearing things up. Verbally. For now.

"We will rip ICE apart," Flanagan said, according to the Star Tribune.

Not reform. Not audit. Rip. Like a bag of chips. Like a parking ticket. Like the Constitution's appropriations clause, which she'll now get to vote on.

She was just getting warmed up. Same speech: lower costs. Universal health coverage. End prior authorization. A right-to-repair law for farmers. End the war in Iran. Hold Trump accountable for what she called the most corrupt administration in history. Rein in "corporate greed."

That's not an agenda. That's a Christmas list written by somebody who's never seen a receipt.

Let's do math. She's one senator. One of a majority of at least 54, per Reuters. With a president who holds a veto pen and, per NPR, still holds it. So universal health care is coming the same week the farmers fix their tractors and the ICE pieces get swept up. Mark your calendar. Use pencil.

Flanagan also told the crowd, "The grift stops now," per Mpls.St.Paul Magazine.

Bold words from a senator-elect who hasn't drawn a paycheck yet. Give it eighteen months. The grift doesn't stop. It just gets a new parking spot on Capitol Hill.

And here's the slogan she pulled that out of, back in August. After beating Rep. Angie Craig in the primary, Flanagan said "we need to rip ICE apart" then. In the same breath, per Fox News, she said she could "secure the border." Pick one. You can't rip apart the lock and brag about the door.

MPR News asked her straight up in August whether that meant abolishing the agency. Her answer: "I mean, we need, you know, an immigration system, but ICE as it currently exists is not it."

I mean. You know. That's the plan. That's the whole blueprint. Three filler words and a shrug. Rip it apart, replace it with "you know," and ask the voters to trust the instructions.

She also said change will come from "new voices" that weren't picked by party leaders. Great. New voices. Same old promise: everything for free, nothing on the bill, and somebody else's fault when it shows up anyway.

Remember, folks: the voters showed up Tuesday mad about prices. Gas. Groceries. The war. Flanagan heard all that and put "rip ICE apart" at the top of the show. Ask any family in Duluth what's tearing their budget apart. It isn't a federal agency. It's the gas pump.

Her victory line was "Let today be the start of a new American movement."

Here's the movement: one speech, seven promises, a veto waiting at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and a plan that starts with "I mean."

She promised to rip ICE apart. Turns out the only thing she ripped Tuesday was the price tag off the promises.

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The Demorat is a satire publication. This article is parody and commentary based on real news reports; jokes, exaggerations and fictional elements are not factual claims. Quotes attributed to real people are drawn from published reporting.

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