The showdown between Senator Ed Markey and Elon Musk

I remember the first time my son saw someone on a unicycle. He was shocked. His mouth opened, his eyes narrowed and he pointed in awe. He yelled, “One tire!” I said, “It’s called a unicycle.”

I’ll admit, looking back on that day 13 years on, that it was more exciting for my son to see a unicycle than it was for me to tell him about it. There is a great joy that comes from seeing wondrous things for the first time, or even for the first time in a long time. Even better are the moments where the wonderment and joy combine in unexpected places in a magical alchemy. It is there that the magic happens. Bruce Springsteen, my fellow New Jerseyian, has said this is the essential ingredient of rock and roll: 1+1 must equal three. The Boss says this is the essential equation to understand in life. It is the one that unlocks happiness, joy and love.

Slightly after 6 am on a frigid Toronto morning yesterday, I peered at my phone and saw it. At first, I couldn’t believe it, but there it was. Laid out in Politico Playbook were the words of a United States Senator cogently talking about a matter of great public consequence. He was directly using the power of his high office to lower the boom on a public miscreant who believes his great wealth has given him a license to live above, apart and beyond the rest of us, while doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants to whomever he wants.

The American elite has elevated billionaires to a place of prestige that exceeds all others in early 21st century life. This has devalued society’s most important currency: character. The result is a vast character deficit in a society driven by the conduct of the wealthiest, mixed with the most powerful. Broadly speaking, it disgusts the American people because they know that it is wrong, broken and corrupt, but they lack the agency and control to stop it.

Enter Senator Edward John Markey from the state of Massachusetts. There he was yesterday morning, lowering the boom. There it was, a throw down that mattered — not one of the contrived, banal and stupid ones that desecrated public discourse in the Zucker era at CNN.