VDH: "I've Never Seen A Political Party Without An Agenda"

It was never about ICE.

Democrats couldn't make the ICE argument because half their party — Ilhan Omar, AOC, the Squad wing — doesn't want any immigration enforcement at all. They can't go on television and explain why shutting down TSA salaries for 39 days is a reasonable response to ICE agents arresting people with deportation orders. Because the honest answer is: we don't think anyone should be deported. And that position polls somewhere near the ocean floor.

So what was this actually about? VDH's answer: the midterms. Democrats want to repeat what they did last year — hurt the economy, destroy the airline industry, make Americans angry at the party in power. Canceled flights. Six-hour security lines. Travelers sleeping on airport floors. People missing funerals and high school reunions and business meetings — all of it on camera, all of it attributable to chaos in Washington.

They have no agenda. VDH says it plainly — he has never in his career seen a major political party with nothing to offer. No policy vision. No affirmative case for anything. No plan for housing, no plan for crime, no plan for energy, no plan for the border — unless the plan is no border. All they have left is sabotage. Make things bad enough that voters blame whoever is in charge.

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Victor Davis Hanson has a theory about the DHS shutdown that I haven't seen anyone else articulate as cleanly — and I think he's right.

It was never about ICE.

Democrats… pic.twitter.com/2TUILEmi6K

— M.A. Rothman (@MichaelARothman)March 26, 2026

The problem: it isn't working. Harry Enten reported the worst Democratic polling numbers ever recorded. CNN's own reporters at Atlanta and Houston airports described scenes of near-celebration. An ICE agent in Houston was getting handshakes and thank-yous. A deal using pre-positioned reconciliation funds got TSA workers paid without a single Democratic vote.

The strategy failed because Republicans didn't fold. And now Democrats are going home for Easter recess with nothing to show for 39 days of pain they inflicted on the American traveling public.

No agenda. No victory. No apology. Just 39 days of paychecks missed and flights missed and reunions missed.