On November 16, longtime New York Times opinion columnist Thomas Friedman published his latest in a long line of horribly wrong takes arguing that the climate crisis will not be solved through state action, but rather by relying on market forces and empowering entrepreneurs. Naturally, as one might expect from such an argument, he held one person up as the meeting of those two forces: billionaire man-child Elon Musk.

If we’ve learned anything over these past six years, it’s that Trudeau and his team are great at crafting their image, but rarely deliver the substance to back it up. As we see the government trying to greenwash itself once again, we should think back to 2015 and demand a climate policy that gets to the root of the problem. That means taking on the capitalist structures that created the problem in the first place.

As Biden seems poised to move into a dominant position in the race for president, the progressives and socialists who vote for him can’t become complacent like they did after Obama’s victory in 2008. The only way to push the administration to take the kind of climate action necessary to avoid the worst warming scenarios will require an organizational effort not seen in the United States in many decades.

Nearly three decades after Chrétien and Martin gutted federal support for the Canadian welfare state, the pandemic has made it clearer than ever that was a mistake. A federal role in health and social programs is necessary not only to make sure they are adequately funded, but also to be certain that the quality of programs and services is maintained across the country.

By shutting down so much of our economy and turning the media funding model on its head, there is a unique opportunity to change Canada’s media ecosystem for the better. We must continue supporting left media, but this is also the time to push for a CBC that is more accountable to the public, has the funding to better fulfill its mandate.

Canada needs its own Green New Deal to enable a rapid transition away from fossil fuels that benefits every working class Canadian by guaranteeing them good jobs, improving their public services, and investing in their communities. But that will require political vision ready to challenge the oil industry and the executives reaping the benefits of Kenney’s tax cuts and Trudeau’s public subsidies.

A true communist future requires a break with billionaire futurism, and that means not being blinded by the sleek visions of Silicon Valley that present technology as the solution to all our problems. Bastani should have left ‘fully automated luxury communism’ to massively online meme lords, but instead he has tainted any real left vision of the future by falling prey to the billionaire futurist version.