Revenge of the Sith is actually good in that it accurately depicts how society can be willingly led into fascism through conspiracy theories about "elites" and the use of ethnic scapegoating to explain economic oppression of the masses, and how liberalism is powerless to stop it
At the very beginning of the prequels, Lucas tells us who the villains are: Capitalists. Economic monopolies backed up by police power, with the liberal gov't unable to do anything. We also see the phenomenal wealth disparity of the so-called "republic," including open slavery.
Palpatine plays both sides, arguing for stronger leadership and executive power while secretly orchestrating the Clone Wars to push the Republic into chaos and militarization. But none of this would be possible if the failures of liberalism hadn't created the right conditions.
As the Clone Wars rage on, Palpatine often references conspiracy theories that the Jedi are behind it -- always denying them publicly, but repeating them enough that more and more people believe them. So when the Jedi suddenly become "traitors," it makes sense to a lot of people.
Mind you, the Jedi had a lot of flaws. They are explicitly NOT defenders of justice and equality, but "peacekeepers" -- aka defenders of the status quo. Even Qui-Gon did nothing about the enslavement of Anakin's mother -- he just wanted to take the boy because of his power.
So your average galactic citizens, the Jedi have never done shit for them -- except maybe taking the occasional Force-sensitive child from their village, who are then taught from childhood to "let go of all attachment" and never contact their families again.
Your average galactic citizen is, however, affected quite strongly by the Clone Wars. Untold billions of beings are killed and displaced during the conflict, to say nothing of the economic devastation it caused. So if it turns out the Jedi are behind it all... fuck them, right?
But things don't get better for your average citizen once the Clone Wars end, so how to explain that? Simple -- the Empire develops a culture of extreme xenophobia, scapegoating non-humans and forcing them out of government roles and enslaving or wiping out entire species.
Throughout it all, the Senate was maintained to give the Empire's brutality a veneer of legitimacy. Liberals like Mon Mothma kept on making speeches as if it would accomplish anything, while denouncing freedom fighters like Saw Gerrera who actually had the guts to fight back.
What did it take to bring down the Empire? Not a speech, not a law, not an election -- but violent revolution. And what happens when the Empire is defeated? Liberals like Mon Mothma are put back in charge. And we all saw how THAT turned out.
(The answer is: Not good)
I do have one correction: Tatooine was not actually part of the Republic, it was controlled by a criminal cartel which the Republic happily maintained relations with by turning a blind eye to the Hutts' atrocities including slavery.
Although slavery was technically banned in the Republic, the liberal government failed to take a strong stand on it with trading partners. Thus, we see how liberal hegemony is maintained by the subjugation of non-citizens into the framework of galactic (aka global) capitalism.
Much as the U.S. used its position after WWII to push neocolonialism in the Global South, the Outer Rim was pulled towards the Republic and its liberal institutions in exchange for participating in its marketplace. But the Republic didn’t care about rights abuses on those worlds.
Anyway, in conclusion please make @dave_filoni the king of Star Wars because he actually seems to care about this kind of stuff as opposed to hacks like J.J. Abrams
Full thread here: threader.app/thread/1285033…
One thing I didn't mention about the Empire's xenophobia is that humans in Star Wars mainly came from core worlds like Coruscant and Corellia, so they were largely aligned with the Republic. Whereas the Separatists, despite being led by Dooku, were dominated by non-humans.
In some ways, the Clone Wars were a rebellion of non-humans in outlying regions against the wealthy, human-dominated core worlds. Some Separatist worlds treated humans like second-class citizens, and some in the Republic considered Dooku a race traitor as well as a political one.
So once the Clone Wars ended, the Empire exploited that resentment and started treating all non-humans like second-class citizens, even those who had fought for the Republic such as Wookiees. You can see this in real life with Western capitalism vs. socialism in the Global South.
