The Politics of Star Wars and MAGA
So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause
Depending on your definition of life I was alive, and present in the theater, when the first Star Wars movie was released. More specifically, my mom watched while quite swollen with child—me—and so my life has been fairly contemporaneous with the Star Wars universe.
Over the years I have seen this franchise change, go through some rough patches, and where it is right now is a mixed bag in terms of quality, coherence of story, and popularity. My very short critique of the Star Wars universe is to say that some of the best of Star Wars are less known to most people1 and that Star Wars has always been political.
And not only has Star Wars always focused on the politics of its own world, it has always been a commentary on our own political circumstances. For example, George Lucas has talked about how the Rebel fighters were based on the Viet Cong. To those critics who claim that Star Wars has become too political, specifically that it has been infected by ‘wokeness’ (which mostly seems to be a criticism of Kathleen Kennedy, specifically), well they might be onto something, but the fact is that many of these complaints are that the politics of Star Wars isn’t their politics.
Over the last few months, I have been re-watching the Star Wars saga in chronological order, mostly because my girlfriend, who missed (or doesn’t remember) much of the various chapters of the story, and I was telling her how good some of it is (were not talking about the Book of Boba Fett, here). And as we’ve been watching, I have been thinking about how some of the politics of Star Wars reflects much of what we’ve been seeing in the real world of politics, and she made an argument that I should make an attempt to write something explaining why I see parallels between the fall of the Star Wars’ Republic and the political era of transition we are currently going through in much of the Western world, specifically the United States.
So, with no further ado, let me start from the beginning.
The Republic and the Jedi
1. The political background of Episode I and II
(you can totally skip this is you’re also a Star Wars junkie)
For those of you who don’t know much about Star Wars lore (see here and here for more on that), there is a lot of history. Granted, much of it is no longer canon, as the old “Expanded Universe” (EU) has become the non-canonical “Legends.” But even within the canon, the history goes back many thousands of years to the Old Republic and even earlier to the origin of the Jedi some 25,000 years before the first movie.
Starting with The High Republic, during which a few media projects exist, we see the Republic at it’s height. The Jedi are largely optimistic, the Republic is expanding, and Yoda, though barely visible in the series, is very influential and a bit younger than the Jedi we meet in The Empire Strikes Back (if we’re talking about when we, humans, first knew of him in 1980). This is a time when thousands of worlds are collaborating throughout much of the galaxy, in relative peace and prosperity. And through The Acolyte series, which takes place around 100 years before the movies, we see that there are already some cracks in the edifice.
If you haven’t seen The Acolyte, I won’t say too much more in way of spoilers, but suffice it to say that the Jedi aren’t depicted as forces for good universally. I realize that this annoys some people who idolize the Jedi and might see this as a more modern deconstruction of the Jedi and their role as the “good guys,” but the fact is that this nuanced view of the Jedi has precedent in the pre-Disney era as well, as we’ll get to next.
When Episode I starts, some 100 years after events of The Acolyte, the movie opens up with Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi arriving for a diplomatic mission in orbit around the planet Naboo. There’s some conflict which includes a trade blockade and the Jedi have been sent to negotiate (ultimately with lightsabers). The trade federation are, behind the scenes, in league with interests similar to what will later become the Separatists. This is just but one of the major conflicts which helps lead the galaxy towards war some years later.
After the events of Episode I, as Anakin Skywalker is undergoing Jedi training, many thousands of worlds, unhappy with the corruption within the Republic, slowly begin to ally themselves with a political movement which ultimately leads to them to separate from this 1000-year-old Republic and some of them are intent on destroying the Republic. This ‘Separatist’ movement, ostensibly led by Count Dooku,2 could be compared to the US Civil War era Confederacy in some respects, but I see something in the MAGA movement here.
But, before we get to that, I want to shift focus back over to Qui-Gon Jinn, his padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the Jedi in general.
2. The Jedi Order and The Senate
The Jedi Order is old. I mean, like really old. At the time of the late republic, the Jedi have been around for longer than we have had agriculture—by a lot; 25,000 years or so. 25,000 years ago, humans were in the paleolithic era, or the stone age, and we have only a few cave paintings from that era. So we’re dealing with a quasi-religious, warrior-monk culture and tradition which is far older than the Republic.
What makes the era of the Republic interesting for our purposes is that the Jedi, especially the Jedi High Council, are intertwined with the politics of the Republican Senate in a way that bothers many within the universe, including Count Dooku and his old padawan (student) Qui-Gon Jinn. The fact that two Jedi were sent to deal with a trade dispute which has nothing to do with “Jedi business” is telling in itself, and demonstrates that the political and economic interests of the Republic are too closely tied to the Jedi.
The Jedi are in many ways a religious order. Their martial skill are supposed to be for defense, but it became normalized at this time in the history of the galaxy that Jedi do, in fact, act as defenders of the Republic. The Jedi order is so close to the Republic at this point that it’s almost not even questioned when a Jedi shows up at your door to take away your very young child, because they demonstrated some sensitivity to the Force. That, in itself, is a sign that the universal goodness of the Jedi might not be especially sacrosanct.
But their position within the Republic is not political nor military in nature, at least not explicitly. When it becomes clear that war is probably immanent, the Jedi aren’t enthusiastic about fighting. As Mace Windu says, they are only “keepers of the peace, not soldiers.” Despite Mace Windu probably saying so earnestly, and this being in line with the order’s general vibe, the Jedi did become soldiers with the advent of the Clone War which began at the end of Episode II.3 To what extent they became part of the war is evidenced by the fact that during the Clone Wars, many of the Jedi are given the rank of General. Granted, General Kenobi does sound pretty awesome and he looks dope in his battle armor.
But what is more important here is that the Jedi maybe should not have needed to become keepers of the peace, either. How, exactly, the Jedi became so entwined with the Senate and the politics of the Republic isn’t fully understood canonically. We know that after the oppressive rule of the Sith a millennia or so before, they probably wanted to make sure that this didn’t happen again, but this doesn’t imply getting involved with politics necessarily.
We also know that the Jedi did lie, cover up, and make some questionable decisions during the The Acolyte (why wasn’t it commonly known that the Jedi attacked a force-wielding lesbian community who raised force-created twins?) and the prequels (hiding the existence of the return of the Sith, specifically Darth Maul, among other actions), are just a couple of decisions which I consider to be dubious. Why did they do this? Well, probably for many reasons, including the ubiquitous rationale of not wanting to lose their power and influence over the galaxy, not to mention loss of respect and status.
By Episode III, even Anakin is questioning this, when he asks Palpatine, in his luxury box at the opera, "The Sith rely on their passion for their strength. They think inwards, only about themselves." Palpatine’s response is epic:
As The Clone Wars series goes on, through 7 seasons detailing the war between Episodes II and III, we see the Jedi making decisions which are morally gray in many cases. And Anakin himself is married (which is against the Jedi order) in secret and his rebelliousness and independence lead to actions in the war which are not especially Jedi-like. He is not alone in this, as other Jedi succumb to the dark side and these Jedi need to be stopped in their actions several times. Towards the end of the war, the Jedi order had changed significantly and the order, even if it hadn’t been destroyed, would have been irreparably (I think) altered anyway.
These types decisions and changes, which were manipulated and orchestrated in a decades-long conspiracy—behind the scenes by the future Emperor Palpatine—acted as a rationalization for the claim, by the same Sheev Palpatine, that the Jedi committed treason against the Republic by trying to take over control of the Senate. Which they quite literally intended to do in trying to arrest Palpatine before he became Emperor. Granted they might have had good reason to, but nobody knew those reasons except a few Jedi, who promptly ignited their lightsabers at the Supreme Chancellor. That very much could look like treason.
Order 66, the executive order given by Palpatine to hunt down and kill (almost) all the Jedi (sound familiar? DOGE in a couple of years?), was obviously the plan by Palpatine (AKA Darth Sidious) from the beginning. It’s also true that the Jedi did get involved in political decisions and actions which could appear, from a certain point of view, to be treasonous. It was a trap, but it wasn’t a trap they had to fall into. By becoming entwined with a political faction, even if it was the political faction which was largely trying to make things better,4 was a move that the Jedi order didn’t have to make. Had the Jedi remained independent, and not been politically tied to the Republic, the corruption of the Republic couldn’t have been associated with the Jedi and The Empire likely wouldn’t have been formed.
Throughout the story told in the movies, various series, books, and comics, we get a larger picture of the Jedi having become so entangled in the politics of the Republic that as corruption spread throughout the political, economic, and cultural world of Star Wars, the Jedi become part of the problem. It wasn’t their intention, and their motives and intentions are mostly good, but what happens when the political structure you are entangled with becomes corrupt is that, in order to maintain that structure and the power it allots, you begin to make mistakes in judgment yourselves as a post-hoc rationalization of your association with them. So when the Jedi order is eradicated (again, mostly), we understand how this could happen even if it is tragic.
Ok, you may be asking yourself, what the Korriban does any of this have to do with our current political climate?
The Elite Professional Managerial Class and the Democratic Party
Yes, that’s the analogy I’m making here.
For decades now, conservatives and other political tribes (including Dan Carlin) have been pissed off at the politics of the United Stated. Since the New Deal era, the political structure of the United States, the power of the executive office, and the size of the federal agencies have grown larger than I think even Alexander Hamilton would have foreseen or possibly approved of. And as part of this, there has grown a class of people who have attended the best schools, influenced policies, lobbied, transformed journalism from a blue-collar gritty profession to one ruled by elites, and taken over education to a degree which is genuinely well-intentioned but beyond broken. In short, the Professional Managerial Class (PMC), elite policy-makers, and other powerhouses of control in our culture are deeply unpopular and they have been for a long time. And this anger started not long before Star Wars became a thing, so the fact that there are parallels isn’t too surprising, as life and art influence one-another.
There have been a plethora of books about how a set of cultural, philosophical, and political opinions have resulted in the so-called ‘culture wars.’ I could cite many of them, but I think we know what kinds of books, articles, and essays I’m talking about. Many of them come from the many reactionary “right wing” of the world, but many others come from the center, Left, and other facets of the many political tribes which exist in the political discourse. I have been one of the Leftist voices in this conversation, as my writing here on substack and more recent years of writing at polyskeptic illustrate.
One central theme of these arguments is that there is a certain kind of person who has been helping create a culture of authoritarian progressivism in much of the Western (WEIRD) world which many of us aren’t especially fond of, and in the United States it is largely associated with the Democratic party and it’s more recent policies including DEI, anti-racism, and many other “progressive” ideas which have led to many people not turning out to vote or switching their allegiance to Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. You know, the “woke” people (yeah, I know, it’s a shitty and vague term, but now everyone is clear what I’m talking about).
The various excesses, corruptions, and frankly annoying ideologies coming from this world have pissed so many people off that they chose to side with the analogous Separatists. In Star Wars, when the Republic fell many responded with thunderous applause. And now we are living with the early consequences of having made a similar choice, where we see that the movement of revenge (of the Sith?), petty grievances (General Grievous?), and resentment (no Star Wars pun here, sorry) which the failure of the Democratic party has brought to us.
In Star Wars, those working for the betterment of the Republic and fighting against the separatists were doing so with good intentions, believing their fight to be the moral one (and in many ways it was). In The Clone Wars series, the Separatists are initially framed as “the bad guys,” but various story arcs have us see the story from the Separatist point of view (The Bad Batch addresses this too), much like some have, in our world, been trying to compassionately tell the story from the point of view of Trump supporters who have legitimate grievances and points about the corruption of the government and who see the Democratic party as responsible. Granted, the old GOP was also responsible, but the Trump movement have overwritten that GOP and so they are no longer politically relevant.
I want to highlight and emphasize that the people who have these bad progressive ideas, who believe they are defending a moral world, genuinely believe they are the good people with a just cause. It’s why they call it “social justice” after all. And I also believe that they are overwhelmingly good people with genuine intentions for good. The bad from them doesn’t come from what they are trying to do (ok, well in some cases it does when they gave way to ideological excess), but from their inability to take criticism. The problem is their inability to believe that maybe they need to be self-critical and also to consider that the “deplorables” might have some legitimate grievance, rather than dismiss them as racist, sexist, etc-ists.
I see some aspects of the MAGA movement is an analogy for the Separatist movement in Star Wars. Trump, a former Democrat, leads a political movement against the corruption and brokenness of politics, and is labeled by the establishment and their defenders as evil (“racist,” “sexist,” “deplorable,” etc). Count Dooku, a former Jedi, student of Qui-Gon jinn, and a harsh critic of the corruption of the Republic, is a Sith Lord. And to the defenders of the Rebublic, the Jedi, the Sith are evil.
And what is a Sith? A Sith is a specific kind of Force-wielder who has a very different view of the Force as compared to a Jedi. Their values are passion, strength, power, and victory. Sound familiar? Sound like Donald Trump? Doesn’t that just sound like the MAGA movement in general?
In Star Wars lore, the Sith controlled the galaxy for hundreds of years with these values before the Republic was formed. In Obi-Wan’s fight with his former student, long time friend, and “brother,” Anakin Skywalker—after he becomes Darth Vader—he says he refuses to allow the galaxy to return to the “darkness” of the Sith. His “allegiance is to the Republic, to democracy.” he must fight this foe because to refuse to do so is to allow democracy to die…you know, in darkness.
In this case, we might analogize the Jedi, who are tied to the institutions created to protect the Republic, with the various institutions, norms, and perhaps even “social justice warriors” (SJWs) of our world. The SJWs might not even mind such a comparison, as the Jedi are seen as the side of “good” here, but let us not confuse nor conflate the light side of the force with the Jedi order as it exists at this time in Republic history. It is quite possible that the Jedi order could have been formed with intention of following the light, only to have that endeavor fail as the order becomes entangled with a political structure which became broken, especially over 1000 years.
And this, I would argue, is precisely what happened to the Jedi in Star Wars, and to what has happened to the liberal and “progressive” institutions, politicians, and other “warriors” for justice and righteousness in our world. Their intentions are good, but at some point they became lost, corrupted, and even authoritarian. And despite the actual good of almost all of the Jedi (I especially am thinking of Obi-Wan here), the Jedi Council is also playing politics, and so isn’t as innocent as any individual might be. Despite the good of the progressives in our world, they have collectively made the world worse, despite their intentions.
But how could an order of good, an order dedicated to truth, justice, and the Coruscantian way be responsible for the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire? And how did the good intentions of the progressive Democrat-aligned policies and ideologies so destroy the Democrats and lead Trump 2.0 to rise? Well, so far we haven’t talked about Anakin Skywalker much, have we? He is the center of much of the story, after all, and we should deal with him.
Anakin Skywalker and the Red Pill
One group of people who aren’t especially fond of the previous cultural takeover of the progressive world, which contains elements of some of feminism, race studies, and other parts of recent trends in intelligentsia are the red-pilled, MGTOW, Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan, and other “anti-woke” or at least not woke bros who are part of the trend of men and women going in opposite directions, politically and culturally in recent years. This cultural trend isn’t exclusive to men, of course, but the divide is clear and it’s largely men who moved towards MAGA.
If you want to understand why so many young men are Trump people, you might want to study Anakin Skywalker. So let’s take a moment to remind ourselves of who this character is before we tie it to our world.
1. Little Ani
In Episode I, The Phantom Menace, we meet a young boy named Anakin Skywalker, who is affectionately referred to as “Ani” by his mother. He’s chipper, kind, and good at fixing things. He’s also a slave, with a mother whose sad countenance and tragic end provides a template for the traumatized and manipulated Vader we find in later stories.
Qui-Gon Jinn, the would-be Jedi Master (as Obi-Wan says: “If you would just follow the code you would be on the council, they will no go along with you this time”) was not favored at court. By that I mean the Jedi council wasn’t fond of Qui-Gon’s independence and refusal to follow the Jedi code (more evidence to how the Jedi had become to tied to law and tradition than “the living Force). When Obi-Wan followed through on his promise to Qui-Gon Jinn, made as he died in Obi-Wan’s arms, to take on Anakin as a padawan learner despite the Jedi Council’s disapproval he was, in essence, keeping the tradition of rule-breakers in this chain of teachers and students (Dooku, Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, etc).
As Anakin grew, his independence and refusal to simply follow the rules, to Obi-Wan’s chagrin (and snark) grew. Anakin is the prototypical rebellious and precocious teenager who just knows he is the best. As his abilities grow at a rate that other Jedi just can’t match, it’s obvious that he wants more power and to not be restricted. He is the “Chosen One” after all.
Anakin constantly grates against his teacher Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Jedi Council, and the rules imposed upon him throughout The Clone Wars movie and series, and as we are well aware, he secretly marries Padme at the end of Episode II, and carries on this secret through the series,5 which is part of his fall to the dark side. “It’s not fair” he yells at one point. He want to be the most powerful Jedi ever, but he thinks that it’s “all Obi-Wan's fault. He's jealous. He's holding me back!"
Granted he says this in mourning and anger, but this is a thought he has and it’s a clue to where his mind is.
General Skywalker
The Clone War changed the Jedi in many ways, but perhaps none more so than those who came of age during those years. The Jedi were supposed to be peacekeepers, not warriors. But when it comes to the Clone War, General Anakin Skywalker stood well above the rest as a warrior. By Season 7 of the Clone Wars, his power is something to be aghast and in awe of. Little Ani, as Padme would call him upon seeing him after many years, became a man during a war that the Jedi were forced (pun very much intended) to fight.
Chancellor Palpatine, a close friend, mentor, and manipulator of Anakin Skywalker in his rise to power and fame, had a whole plan. You see, he wanted control of the whole galaxy, he wanted immortality, and he needed to utilize a vergence in the force—one which he may have had a part in creating—in Anakin Skywalker.
Long before he was chancellor, Palpatine conspired to have master cloners create a clone army in secret, to have his apprentice, Dooku, lead a separatist political movement against the Republic, then subsequently get elected to Chancellor of that same Republic after getting his patsy (poor Jar Jar was done dirty) to call for a vote of no confidence in the previous chancellor. He then proceeded to manipulate the Jedi High Council, Anakin, and the whole galaxy into a war all so that he could ultimately make it look like the Jedi were committing treason in order to be able to wipe them all out. As far as Sith plans go, it’s pretty ingenious and diabolical.
And how does he effectively achieve such a feat? Anakin Skywalker. Anakin, the young, kind, optimistic boy is trained to be a Jedi—but not just any Jedi but the chosen one—in a situation where the Jedi Council is wary of him and aware that his fear, anger, and impulsiveness are a problem. Then, when his mother his taken captive and ultimately killed by Tuskan Raiders, Anakin kills the whole village.
“I killed them. I killed them all. And not just the men, but the women and the children, too. They're like animals, and I slaughtered them like animals. I hate them!"
—Anakin Skywalker
This was Anakin’s fall to the dark side, but he already had authoritarian tendencies. It happens long before Revenge of the Sith, when he is still quite young and impressionable (much like what social media has done to many young men in our world). This means that the whole time he’s “General” Skywalker, his path is already dominated by the dark side of the force. The one major chance he has to undo this, at Mortis (oh why don’t more Star Wars fans know about this arc!?) he simply returns to the war and keeps going along the path which Palpatine has put before him. He is fighting “for good,” but he is already on the dark path because he believes in a form of ruling with is authoritarian.
When we get to Revenge of the Sith, the fait accompli is in utilizing Anakin’s dreams and fear of Padme’s upcoming death as a means to have Anakin come to distrust and ultimately turn against the Jedi. And when Mace Windu defeats Sidious in combat, in an attempt to arrest him, Anakin is left with the choice of doing his duty or to protect the Sith from Mace Windu’s attempt to kill him (see? Treason). He must do this to save Padme, to whom he is desperately attached in a very un-Jedi-like manner. This is why the Jedi aren’t supposed to have attachments such as marriage, because it’s a potential path to the dark side of the Force.
But it’s also precisely how Anakin could be manipulated to help destroy the Jedi temple, order, and all hope for the future of the light side of the Force.
You have allowed this dark lord to twist your mind, until now... until now you've become the very thing you swore to destroy
-Obi-Wan Kenobi
“Woke” Progressive Authoritarians and the new “Woke Right”
Young men, and some women too, have allowed the MAGA influencers to twist their minds until now they have become the thing they swore to destroy.
Many progressive people out there are now blaming the “anti-woke” influencers on the right, center, and left for the victory of Trump and the new “woke right” which it has ushered in. But none of it could have happened if the progressives had been willing to listen to the criticism of their ideology from people in disagreement with them. That is, if they hadn’t cancelled everyone with a heterodox opinion and pushed them out of positions of influence and power, they wouldn’t have caused the backlash that was the victory of Trump in 2024. Their arrogance blinded them, just as it did to the Jedi.
Just like the Separatists couldn’t have existed if there hadn’t been corruption in the Republic, MAGA could have never won if the social justice warriors within the various parts of elite culture—the Professional Managerial Class, elite journalism, and elite universities—hadn’t become so self-righteous and up-their-own-asses with their implementation of bad policies which pissed off so many people. Their insistence at steadfastly defending their convictions, paralleling religious piety in many ways, wasn’t a strength but a weakness and it has landed us where we are.
Those progressive warriors out there fighting for justice, the Jedi of our world, were fighting to maintain a political and cultural hegemony that they shouldn’t have been tied to in the first place; the Democratic party. In Star Wars, the Republic became corrupt, and the Jedi lost their way alongside this institution. In our world, the elite class of journalists, professors, writers, and other people fighting for social “justice” similarly lost their way and are still defending Kamala Harris et al and the policies of the Biden administration despite the fact that those candidates and policies failed and were deeply unpopular. Over the last decade or so, these ideological convictions created a chasm between them and the working class, such that they couldn’t even see that they had caused their own undoing.
So when people in the MAGA world, people such as Steve Bannon, Curtis Yarvin, Russell Vought, etc saw all of this happening, I bet they salivated at a means to attain power; by influencing (manipulating) a lot of Americans who already had legitimate grievances, anger, and distrust of a political institutions which believed in the righteousness of the noble lie. All they had to do was argue that the (real) corruption of the system was caused by the bad ideas of the “libtards” who they already distrusted. And if those libtards actually did act in authoritarian ways, cancelling and calling “bigot” anyone who disagreed with their ideology, then all-the-better for the MAGA case. The lack of epistemological humility just made the progressive justice-seekers look like out-of-touch elitist assholes (which, in many cases, they were).
Had the Jedi Council refused to take part in the war, or stepped aside when it became clear they were being manipulated, then Palpatine could never have had the rationale to go ahead with order 66. And had the progressive thought-leaders saw criticism of them— by moderates, critical leftists, and the right-ring anti-woke who formed in their wake—as something to take seriously and actually listened rather than call their critics as mere deplorable bigots, MAGA wouldn’t have succeeded.
The young men who are diverging largely from their female counter-parts who swing progressive are all young men who are afraid, angry, hateful, and—yes—suffering. The masculinity problem is a real thing, and MAGA has absolutely taken advantage of it by magnifying the real toxic aspects of some feminist ideology which sees men as toxic, sexist, etc. Young men today grew up in a world told—before they have done anything at all—that they are the problem. The guilt, fear, and self-hatred which resulted from this has been manipulated by dark forces who saw an opportunity to utilize bad ideas on the progressive side to convince them that “Trump is for you.”
Trump doesn’t give a shit about them, he just wants validation and praise. He wants power; much like Palpatine, only less capable.
All these young MAGA people are individual Anakin Skywalkers, and now they are largely on their way to becoming little wannabe Darth Vaders. And who’s fault is it? Well, it’s obviously the fault of Trump and the people behind the scenes of the MAGA cult, but it couldn’t have happened if the Progressive—”woke”—world had been willing to hear criticisms rather than cancel and call everyone bigots. Their exclusiveness (so much for DEI) was their undoing because they pushed everyone away who wasn’t perfectly in-line with their thinking
All they had to do was practice some humility, epistemological skepticism over their own ideas, and not fall into the trap of one of the worst philosophical ideas of the 20th century; critical theory. You see, critical theory advocates for activism over skepticism, because it doesn’t trust the objectivity of critical thinking, science, and the liberal process of government. It has the answers, it knows what is right and who the bad people are, and those bad people and their stupid ideas just need to be defeated. To engage with the bad people would be to “platform” them, and you don’t platform bigots.
The MAGA people, who are now the institutional power, have learned the lesson from that part of the progressive world and have no interest in discussion; because just like the woke left, the woke right are authoritarian, and their definition of social justice will be quite different from those of the progressive Left.
The Republicans and Democrats have been corrupt so long that it was inevitable that a movement would arise to counter it, and for many years every attempt was squashed. The duopoly of the Republicans and Democrats was so entrenched that internal change couldn’t happen, not even by the popular Bernie Sanders. So when MAGA, which is ostensibly a movement for change, took over one of the parties the other party entrenched within its elitist high ground and failed to understand how out-of-touch they had become.
The Empire could only come to be because the Republic was unwilling to fix itself, and the Jedi were lost in an attempt to preserve it. Trump 2.0 could only come about because the political establishment refused to fix itself. The guardians of that order, allied and tied to the institutions—the norms (“this isn’t normal”)—dug in. But they had also become ideologically attached to ideas from the captured elite world of progressive elites. Their social justice warriors, our version of Jedi, were unable to be self-critical because they insisted upon being theoretically critical rather than properly skeptical. And right now they are losing.
Are they beginning to listen now? I have a bad feeling about that.
Andor, Rogue One, The Clone Wars animated series, The Bad Batch, and The ‘Tales of’ series to mention some favorites.
Count Dooku, AKA Darth Tyranus, a former Jedi played wonderfully by the late Christopher Lee in live action, and whose more full story is expanded later in Tales of the Jedi—which is a perhaps overlooked but amazing set of stories which fleshes out much of the missing gaps in the story.
If it hasn’t become clear here, I’m a big fan of the prequel series, even with its weaknesses (dialog, Jar Jar, etc)
The Clone Wars series shows the complicated political squabbles and the attempts to save the republic, by some good actors such as Padme Amidala—you know, Anakin’s secret wife—from its real corruption