Lit Centrists versus Populists? Which would you choose in the canon New Republic?

The Centrists versus the Populists... which faction would you choose in the canon New Republic?

The Centrist party supports a more centralized New Republic government... with a stronger Senate, a stronger Executive, and a stronger Military. A radical far-right Centrist group within it believes each planet should be a fortress world. A radical far-left Centrist group believes all economic and social activity should be regulated. Some Centrist senators decided to secede and help form the public face of the First Order, it seems.

The Populist party supposed a decentralized New Republic government, and strongly supports the rights of member-worlds, with some Populists being fine with a New Republic Senate forever deadlocked because no action would be better than action that might be reaching or misguided. Leia remarks in "Bloodline" that a recent success the Populists had was the privatization of healthcare in the galaxy. A radical far-left Populist group within it believes the New Republic should shift to a direct democracy, with all citizens writing and voting on all legislation. A radical far-right Populist group supports the abolition of the Senate, and the New Republic being dismantled to just a weak alliance or confederation. Back in the era of Chancellor Palpatine, most Populist Senators would probably be closest to the Separatists who seceded to form the public face of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

If you lived in the GFFA, which faction would you support? Do you think the galaxy needed a stronger military and more active government? Or do you think the galaxy needed to move away from galactic government and let the individual systems take charge?

Would your mind change if you knew the First Order was preparing to attack?

What if there is a post-IX return to the status quo, and you knew another threat would inevitably come?
- whether from inside the government (like another Palpatine, ready to take command of the government and whatever strength you vote to give it)
-or a threat from Far Outside (like some Neo-Vong or more Neo-Imperials, ready to crush a galaxy that's too weak or divided)?

This video also gives a good overview of galactic political history in about 8 minutes:


These factions have been most detailed in the novel "Bloodline" by Claudia Gray.

These factions are probably most similar to the old "Federalist Party" of Hamilton and "Democratic-Republican Party" of Jefferson in very early US history. That should be the most modern we go in comparison to the real-world. Let's keep current politics out of this.

P.S. It is "Centrists" (NOT "centralists")
P.P.S. It is "Bloodline" (NOT "bloodlines")

 

Yeah I liked this part of Bloodline a lot. It really was hitting the zeitgist, as it came out in 2016, during the US Presidential election where Leia was like Hillary Clinton.

I lean towards the right these days, as I feel that liberalism from 2008-2016 did nothing to help this country.

 

Let's keep current politics out of this discussion, thank you.

 

Where is the bit in Bloodline about privatizing healthcare? I've looked through it now, and didn't see it.

Though privatized healthcare for veterans in the New Republic is mentioned by Bazine in The Perfect Weapon, though she doesn't say who instituted that policy.

 

Whichever one would give me Free Government tested DEATH STICKS

 

Yeah. I'd be the guy at every protest with a "Legalize It!" sign.

Sent from my SM-G390W using Tapatalk

 

Where is the part about the Populist privatizing healthcare from?

I don't think you can keep real-life politics out of this, since a choice like this is about seeing your own politics reflected in the fiction.

 

I've always stated my ideal galactic government is no galactic government. Make no mistake, I'm no anarchist or libertarian, but I don't think a reasonably free government can work well on such a massive level. So I'd probably be a Populist.

 

Probably the Centrists but it's not a perfect solution. While I actually agree with Havoc above that a strong central government would have problems existing on such a massive scale, populism would also not fare much better since the galaxy is too large for any one government to appeal to "the people" since "the people" would contain so many different species, cultures, religions, etc. that there'd be so many individual concerns, problems, issues, etc. that it would be chaos.

The Hand of Thrawn duology and the NJO sort of touched upon this with the idea that the New Republic has a hard time maintaining order because different species and planets are all so different with their own grievances and hatreds.

 

It's definitely NOT in Bloodline. I have the digital copy, and have done just about every search I can think of.

 

Daniera created a thread that got me thinking. I’d love to know what the health benefits and other economic policies the various governments of Star Wars have. Wouldn’t it be amazing if the Galactic Empire wasn’t as bad to its citizens in terms of health care, social security and pensions?

 

My gut instinct is populism, as a hugely diverse galaxy requires diverse forms of governance. The hive-based society of Geonosis would require very different rules and leadership than multicultural Coruscant. It also strikes me that centralising power allowed Palpatine to establish his empire.

Whilst reading Bloodlines, I found myself disagreeing with Leia, but I could see her point. Whilst I would definitely want the Senate to exist, I would be wary of it having too much direct influence over individual planets. For defence against outside threats, each world could have been encouraged/required to build their own military fleets and to participate in a NATO-style collective security arrangement.

 

I swear I read a throwaway line how the last time the Populists had achieved anything, it was when they privatized healthcare under Chancellor Mon Mothma. I started a re-read several months ago, I need to get that going again when I'm done with my current book.

 

Populist, but mainly in reaction to the Empire-curious tendencies of the Centrists, which I'd view as the greater evil. In itself, the Populist agenda doesn't impress me much. A decentralized galaxy with an extremely weak central government smells a little too much like the dysfunctional mess that the Republic was before Palpatine walked into it.

 

My overall tendency is towards centralization, but I think the whole "different species need different rules" is probably the most solid argument against galactic governance out there. There's a legit point to be made that it's simply not possible to apply laws evenly among individuals whose differences aren't cultural or political but actually biological.

Like, imagine placing a species like humanity and a species that runs on hive minds in the same legal system. How would that even work? Is the hive mind one being, or many? Does it get one vote, or many? When the queen decides to sacrifice one of her soldiers, is that the murder of a sentient being, or is it the equivalent of clipping your fingernails? If one of the hive commits a crime, do you imprison the entire hive, or is that discrimination and collective punishment?

 

In addition to what Jello said, you can also believe (for example) the government of your country needs less centralized power, but that the government of the New Republic is too far the other side and needs more centralized power. If any comparison to real life should be made, it should be a historical example, like the Hamilton's Federalists for Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans example that I gave. Something so old that's it's no longer really relevant to modern politics.

 

Considering one side is nostalgic for the Empire and the other side isn't... yeah, I'd support the populist. Reluctantly so but then that was Leia's opinion in the novel as well. The populists were too passive, happy with the stagnant status quo, while the centrists would have started up with stormtroopers again. And it was only sustainable while there was no galactic crisis going, something that would have forced systems to work together.

Its too bad the novel couldn't have touched on the role of the Chancellor, usually the author has a better handling of canon. Or Lucasfilm has no background for Villecham and could care less about the details of the Republic so Gray just had to work with what she had, probably this scenario.

 

Only a small faction of the Centrists were nostalgic for the Empire. Remember Leia being a Rebel hero made her popular with most of them.

Also the point of Bloodline was that the Chancellor was so insignificant that whether there even was one or not was irrelevant. Hence the First Senator.

Also, Villecham wasn’t elected yet. It came out in the TFA VD that he was in the 2nd year of his first term. Bloodline was written later so they definitely knew, and it’s set 6 years before.

 

Somewhere in the middle would be about right for me if I was living in the Star Wars universe I’d agree that a strong military is important and electing a supreme chancellor the right cause of action because the moment it’s left to individual worlds to govern the big will prey on the small

But I also would agree with populist things of more rights to govern things on there own worlds within reason and free healthcare etc

 

Which side is going to build a space-wall around the outer rim territories?

 

Where are the independents...the people who want more local control so planets can run their own affairs...but want a strong central military to deal with security of the Republic.

 

I think those are extremely hard things to combine. A strong central military requires a lot of tax money flowing to the core as well as a large central bureaucracy. both of which are which are going to make the central government more trusted and prestigious compared to local planets.