I’d like to have the Jedi themselves gradually become authoritarian over the course of the PT. At the beginning of Episode 1, they’re more like academics, diplomats, and thought leaders with no formal power in the galaxy, having given it up at the beginning of the long peace they live in. But this long peace is coming to an end, and the Jedi, reminiscing their past as defenders of peace and justice in the galaxy, illegally intervene in this war. This should be portrayed as a good thing, if they hadn’t, the bad guys would’ve just chewed up whatever planet they invaded and moved on to the next, and the Republic was incapable of stopping them without the Jedi.
The enemy responds by escalating the war to deal with the Jedi, to the point where the Jedi can no longer handle the war on their own. The Republic is at risk of being conquered, and the Jedi save the Republic by seizing more power and mobilizing a large, centralized army capable of fighting a galactic-scale war. Since the Jedi have been the boots on the ground, this army is answerable to the Jedi, not necessarily the Senate, giving the Jedi essentially more power than the Republic. After Episode 2, the galaxy may as well already be in the same political state as it is under the Empire, the only major difference being that the Jedi, who are trying to do the right thing, are in charge. The Senate won’t be dissolved until Episode 4, but in Episode 3 they’re just rubber stamping what the Jedi want to do anyway. Again, this should be something the audience is on board with. If they didn’t do this, the Republic would have been destroyed and someone far worse would have been ruling the galaxy.
The Senate would be more like the Roman Senate than the American Senate, where all the Senators have important bureaucratic jobs outside of legislating. Palpatine is the Jedi’s representative in the Senate, a very prestigious role before the PT but not powerful until the war happened. But now, Palpatine is essentially the commander-in-chief of an army which is more powerful than the Republic, and all he has to do to seize complete control of the galaxy for himself is to get the Jedi out of the picture. He does that, and that’s it. He sells this seizure of power easily, because ostensibly the only difference between the Jedi’s regime and his is that his regime is more effective and not self-sabotaging with allegiance to, like, ideals and morality. Now that Palpatine’s in power, the “Republic” easily wins the war they always should have been able to.
I wouldn’t want the audience realizing the Jedi were doing anything wrong until it’s in retrospect at the end of the trilogy. The Republic is cripplingly stalled by corruption and enough Senators are in the pockets of the enemy that the Jedi are the only ones capable of fighting a truly evil enemy, but they have the strategy of white blood cells and put the galaxy in a worse position because of it. If Palpatine’s behind the enemy here too, this could be his real plan, counting on the Jedi Code’s complete intolerance of the dark side to get them to seize power for him.
That would have been great.