#but then you see things like him defending rich manor lords because Capitalism or outright praising NATO and you're like ah. right.

[elbiotipo]

A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry talked about this better and more pedantly than me recently, but it's interesting to see the Galactic Republic and the Galactic Empire from Star Wars, rather than a modern representative republic that falls to fascism, as the Holy Roman Empire. A (galactic) "republic of princes" with an elected senate (or diet?) and leadership but is otherwise a collection of independent states each with their own militaries, governments, etc.

The Clone Wars could be seen as a conflict between these princedoms (a lot of what happens in the Clone Wars series is about convincing such and such system to support one way or the other) similar to the Thirty Years' War, and the Empire as an attempt to centralize power in a single sovereign much like it was seen in the history of early modern Europe, which of course is an expensive and difficult effort (especially in a galaxy accostumed to the 'traditional' loose government of the Republic). Since the Emperor himself is not a good sovereign at all,not only Evil but also incompetent, he quickly falls out of favor from the princes, and his centralized military is defeated by the Rebel Alliance. Presumably, Order Is Restored, but you can see that after such a thing, there would be very fundamental changes all over the galaxy that I don't either the old expanded universe and definitively not the new canon have resolved. (the Star Wars Enlightment/Napoleonic Wars, anyone?)

Anyways, Star Wars is obviously a story abut a family of space wizards, but it's very interesting to imagine how the wider Galaxy works from a political, historical, etc. perspective, and I found this idea very appealing, an interesting thing to support my Space Empires worldbuilding post.