I think it’s pretty safe to assume that there was a lot developed about the political situation in TFA that was probably culled a bit when it came time to write the screenplay, and then finally effectively cut out entirely during editing. In JJ’s quest for fast-paced simplicity he basically just made it so people who weren’t paying attention could go “oh right rebels vs. empire,” without being confused or bored by the political specifics (ala TPM). With Rian, we’ll never known what he would’ve done without the set up, but as with everything he just followed JJ’s lead and kept the details of political situation to a minimum.

Now when it comes to rewriting the crawl, there’s certainly room to expand upon JJ’s uber-simplified version. But I think we should keep in mind not adding information that isn’t really relevant to the film (just to satisfy personal desire for lore).