Well George Lucas was pretty overtly political in Star Wars from the very beginning, from the Empire being pretty clear stand-ins for Nazis to the ground battle on Endor being a metaphor for Vietnam.
The entire prequel trilogy was about how a democracy can be subverted to become an authoritarian regime. Say what you will about Lucas' ability to write realistic dialog, but the man always had big/interesting ideas.
I still think the prequels were so very close to being amazing. If only he had taken his approach that he took on Empire/ROTJ and let someone else write the scripts and direct based on his ideas.
This was what J.J. Abrams and crew missed about the sequel trilogy. It should have been the inverse of the prequels, in that it should have shown how a thriving democracy gets threatened by an external force (Separatists, First Order, whatever) but can fight back those forces and remain a thriving democracy with the right leadership (Leia, Luke).