I have thought about how in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the Soviet Union officials are the villains, but they are shown to be acting in reaction to existing United States weaponry and technology that is threatening their country and government. RedLetterMedia does good job of explaining this in their review of the movie.
However, their main goal is to use the titular skull for mind control against Earth's population.
Amon's arc pissed me off so much.
"Hey, a lot of the city is joining this movement and attending these rallies talking about how non-benders get treated like second class citizens, this must be a message that is resonating with people and speaks to a legitimate problem. People are literally signing up to fight and die for this cause."
"Yeah, but the leader was a bender, so he's a hypocrite. As long as we punch the figurehead for this movement really hard, we don't have to think about the broader social commentary anymore."
Side note: when I met my wife and we started dating we bonded by complaining about how shitty the politics of season 1 was.