https://humandomestication.guide/canon-guidelines/AxiomsRulesLore

Affini, as individuals, are flawed and capable of making mistakes. Systemic mistakes, on the other hand, are vanishingly rare

If you give the Affini a surface-level examination, they look pretty awful, but when an abusive human says “it’s for your own good,” it’s an excuse. It’s a deflection. It’s a way to justify what they’re doing to you. When the Affini say it, it’s true.

The Affini Are Imperialist

they cannot allow sophonts to govern their affairs independently as it would lead to suboptimal outcomes (It doesn’t hurt, of course, that it puts them in a position to adopt new florets. This is, as far as they’re concerned, a pretty nice bonus).

The rules say the slavers are good and nice and you can’t arrive at any other conclusion if you’re an HDG writer.

So yeah, you can write politics into your HDG story, if and only if you’re a pro-slavery imperialist.