 2021 was a crucial year for the United States. For starters, Donald Trump finally left office. But for those who thought that Trump was the beginning and the end of the country's problems, a rude awakening lay ahead. As 2021 comes to an end, much has remained unchanged in the US. Political gridlock rains, the far right wing continues to flourish and millions of working class people struggle, even as the wealth of billionaires continues to grow. Where does the country stand here after Trump was defeated? What is the state of the political system and the condition of the working people in the country? What possibilities have changed lay ahead in 2022? Eugene Poirier of Breakthrough News explains. I think if there's any major political lesson we would take from 2021, I think it would be that going from Trump in 2020 to Biden in 2021 with maybe COVID as a linking continuum is there isn't that much fundamental difference between the two major political parties. I think that 2021 more than anything else was marked by a reality and the political sphere of the fact that there is essentially zero political will in Congress, in the White House, in the sort of interrelated areas of the judiciary to actually make any significant moves that would infringe upon the rights of capital. I mean, certainly there were many promises coming into this year from the Biden administration about not only quote unquote building back from what we had seen in 2020 and the collapse around COVID, but quote unquote building back better and improving the material situation for the broad masses of working class people. And that just did not happen. And the primary reason none of that happened is that there was not enough unity amongst the political class around asking for a greater social contribution from the richest 1%, really the richest 0.01% of the population which has seen its wealth surge massively on the backs of really what has been the worst situation for the broad masses of people to 140 million people living in poverty in the United States more than anyone else. And so I think that is really a notable factor about where we are right now. It's a notable factor about how COVID was dealt with is that in fact keeping the economy open is more important than the lives of tens of millions of people from the point of view of the government. So not only is it showing that the political system in the United States is unwilling to touch the wealth of billionaires in any substantive way to help the broad masses of working people but that it's willing to sacrifice the broad masses of working people on the altar of profit because the economy is considered so weak in the ability to provide social provision so little that even COVID-19 and a massive pandemic can't stop it. So I think it really is a notable statement 2021 about the nature of the political system in the United States and certainly something about the rapaciousness of the rule of capital at this time. I think looking at 2022 the sort of political situation will be interesting because I think that there's going to be a political paralysis and gridlock in terms of the formal political process. I could be wrong about that at least in the first half of the year. I mean this often happens in election years because everyone is out saying what they're going to do and can often then therefore not agree on as much because everyone's posturing to their supporters in order to try to get the maximum amount of votes. But that being said I think the wild card is is what happens in terms of the street if you will in terms of the social elements the extra parliamentary elements of the class struggle in the United States. I mean you know when you look at what has happened that's another thing that has really marked this time. We've seen you know the sort of revival of the strike at least in a cultural way in the United States but certainly millions of workers fighting for their rights and many of them winning. We saw in 2020 the uprising against racism with tens of millions of people coming out against the primary issue of police terrorism but really blossoming into a greater issue around the national oppression of Black people in this country which is also carried over many ways into the cultural sphere. So the issue of class struggle of social struggle has also been big and I think the question is is in some ways that's been a little bit in the doldrums in the past several months. I think the question remains millions of workers contracts expiring next year with the continuation of so many forms of exploitation and oppression. Whether or not we are going to see a revival of struggle with people recognizing that's all that they have that really ultimately at this stage in the game the political arena isn't going to show them that much. That's certainly something that we saw from 2021 and then how does that move formal politics going into an election year and I think all of that is is yet to be seen but I think in many ways it's the biggest under discussed story about what's big in 2022 and I think that is what are the lessons that people imbibe from the total political enclosure that we've seen over the past two years of amidst the greatest crisis from pandemics to poverty to climate change that both wings of the major political system have totally collapsed under the weight of that and offered no solutions whatsoever in fact sending tens of millions of people to die instead of solving fundamental problems whether or not the political lessons learned from that come over into the social sphere come over into the class struggle sphere create a new storm of millions of people taking their life into their own hands and how that affects politics. I think it's going to be very interesting to look at all of these different dynamics in that light going into 2022. One aspect that has remained unchanged is the foreign policy of the United States whether it be targeting Russia and China supporting Israel or interventions in Latin America the broad arc of the US foreign policy has continued under Biden. What has been the nature of US interventionism across the world this year? What are the strategies ahead and how does imperialism factor into this? I think that's a great question and I think that you know first and foremost I would say another thing to watch in 2021 is allegedly the release of the National Defense Strategy Document the first one under Biden the last one 2018 which I think will be a very important statement because it's really where the Pentagon the Department of Defense lays out the broader imperial strategy on behalf of the broader United States government and I think seeing how that has been shaped in the past couple years or the past few years or about four years a little bit more will be very interesting but that being said I think it's obvious that the United States is going to continue the containment strategy against China and now of course there's been some step back and they're trying to say well it's not a new cold war but I think there's still a new cold war mentality that's at play there and I think we've seen that with things towards the end of the year including the sanctions on China that have come in late in the year allegedly related to human rights abuses in Xinjiang allegedly I say there but nevertheless that's what the US is accusing but be that as it may I think that's the centerpiece of what we are recognizing and as the last National Defense Strategy said that really the biggest strategic threat to US imperialism is so-called interstate rivalry and maintaining regional balances of power is the critical element that they were going for in that defense strategy and I think we'll continue to say so the main sort of engine of a multipolar world away from US unilateral imperialism is China they were continuing to be hostile towards them which means that around the world they're going to continue to be hostile towards any political project that not only is relating to China but that more importantly is relating to its own region or perhaps the world in a way that says unipolar US imperialism is wrong there should be more quality between nations if you will in all spheres of international cooperation and that cooperation rather than confrontation is the order of the day that will see an intensification of imperialist strategy behind that we've seen the largest ever defense budget was passed of course by Biden by both political parties last year so we can see that they're gearing up for war both ideologically and practically and ultimately I don't think there's going to be any change as we see the decline in so many ways and really looking at what we saw in 2020 and 2021 the decline in so many ways of US imperialism as a political power as an economic power rent by contradictions that it cannot solve that it will not continue to lash out and try even more aggressively to hold on to its foothold as the greatest imperial power on the planet right now