Rolling up on the podium in his comically oversized cowboy boots, Emperor of Executive Orders, Master Mumbler, announced with an eyebrow wiggle that his coat-tailed cronies had been given new marching orders. In an innovative turn of events, they were tasked to put their red noses on, climb into their clown cars, and embark on a spectacular mission to conjure a spell designed to vaporize student debt.
Rolling out the deck of jumbled jargon from his wheelbarrow of wacky policy, Mumbler professed that his micromanaging minions would be employing not just any sorcery, but one sprinkled with the mystic sand from the Higher Education Act of 1965. Strange as it may sound, this was a legal sleight of hand hidden up the many folds of his polka-dotted magicians’ suit all along, he claimed with a grin that stretched from coast to coast.
As Emperor Mumbler bumbled forth about this soon-to-be world tour of administrative acrobatics, his loyal band of stooges nodded along, their eyes etched with equal parts bewilderment and amusement. They were no strangers to his propensity for pulling policy rabbits out of formless federal hats or casting regulatory vanishing acts. But this time, the stakes were higher, the spotlight brighter, and the audience, a sea of unsuspecting students, waiting with bated breath, their hopes teetering on the precipice of his every surreal sentence.
The enchanted crowd watched, their eyes as round as full moons, as the Emperor’s plan took flight, against the backdrop of a perennial juggling act borne out of different legal authorities. They waited to see if the smoke and mirrors of policy parlance could morph into tangible lifelines to pull them out of the deep trenches of debt or if they would simply fade away into the musty air of yet another political promise.
As the polka-dotted tent of his announcement closed, Mumbler turned, his cape billowing in the flurry of half expectant, half dubious gazes. It remained to be seen if, in this grand political circus, the Emperor’s latest gambit would win applause, or if it would be just another act in the carousel of comedic affairs.
The magic wand of debt cancellation was waved, the audience held its collective breath, and all eyes rested on the nation’s top jester. The stage was set, the show had begun, with the finale hanging in pregnant silence. Fasten your seat belts, students of America; it’s time for the show that will either make you laugh so hard you cry or…just make you cry. Only time, and Master Mumbler’s clown car of cronies, would determine the critics’ final laughs.
