I don’t think its purposely written like this, but I think it is accidentally quite good writing about a hopeless political struggle between two reactionary forces.

Nah, it really is supposed to be like that, sort of. They knew what they were doing when they wrote the Empire as being formed by a horrible tyrant the crimes of which history whitewashed and who was literally deified. I'm sure there were more than a couple liberals on the team for Skyrim who didn't understand the story of the game they were making, but it's definitely not accidental that both the Empire and Stormcloaks are clearly bad. I mean, even back in Morrowind it was implied that said deified tyrant('s ghost) felt like it was time for his own empire to fall, and for something new to rise up from its ashes.