Holding Out for a Hero

My sister asked me if Elon Musk was a bad person.  Her husband was thinking about buying a Tesla and she didn’t want to support an enterprise owned by an anti-Semite.  I gave her an unhelpful and rambling answer – he apologized, yeah, the conspiracy theories, yes the vengeance-taking.  And then I said, without any way for her to understand, he is a hero to me.

One line from the movie, The American President, has always stuck with me. Michael J. Fox said, (paraphrasing here) people are so desperate for leadership they will crawl through the desert and drink sand in search of it.  My heroes have come and gone over the years. In the height of the pandemic Governor Cuomo loomed large - the booming voice, the championing of the front-line workers, the relentless search for ventilators, the call to family, Do the Right Thing.  Then he got caught up in the MeToo movement.  And, following the etiquette of the day, I had to relinquish him.  I cast him out.

My sister got the trans stuff before I did.  Boys are boys and girls are girls.  Why are we confusing children?  And, back in the before-times, I had replied - but 40% of trans youth are suicidal.

There are so few of us here in this liminal space with Elon.  Those, who once hewed Left, now in a free fall from tribe and culture.  Those whose mortal wounds have given way to a searing clarity on our society. Yes, my sister understands the trans issue at some level. But on the other hand, she still believes land acknowledgments are a proper penance. She doesn’t see all that I see now. She doesn’t see how the many other kind and inclusive efforts have damaged our culture and our children. Elon calls it a virus.  He quotes The Princess Bride. He thinks of the resistance in Star Wars.  He points us to Homer’s Iliad.  

"Poor man, how much you've borne—pain to break the spirit!

What daring brought you down to the ships, all alone,

to face the glance of the man who killed your sons,

so many fine brave boys? You have a heart of iron.”

Yes, in some ways this is best described in symbolic language and mythology. I see so many offering up comments and opinions about Elon’s purchase of Twitter and his so-called turn to the Right. Particularly from my old media sources and late-night comedians.  From my old Democrat standbys. They don’t seem able to get beyond their glibness.  This is so much bigger than they understand. This is not at the level of pundit speak.  This is something purer. Isaacson wrote a god-knows-how-many-pages tome on Elon but, when I heard Isaacson interviewed, I thought, he has lost the plot.  Are we the only ones with front row seats to this epic love story starring Elon and his son?  

The fellowship of man.  I don’t share Elon’s celebrity or wealth, his power or genius. His life in so many ways is a far cry from what I know.  And yet.  And yet, I do understand.  We all understand.  We, us parents, understand better than all the bright minds out there trying to explain him.  

We all know exactly the heartache.  I know exactly the shock of a worldview collapsing in one fell swoop.  I know exactly the horror when you realize you have been complicit in a system that harmed your child.  Who among us parents didn’t listen to that interview with Jordan Peterson with a catch in our throats, knowing viscerally and intimately the pain he was expressing. Or at least was trying to express.  I don’t know how to put it into words either.

Can we stop holding out for a hero and graciously accept when something heroic is offered to us? In this age of political correctness and cancel culture, is a hero even possible?  Who can qualify in our current confines?  I don’t know.  But I will not cast out Elon.  No matter.  He has put his wealth, security and heart on the line for this fight.  He has platformed our anguish. He is taking the incoming fire.  He has given us the tools to fight. That must be enough.  That is enough for me.