Resistance caught between two villains?

not sure where you got the idea that the fleet was mothballed. it was definitely pared down a bit, but then pretty much destroyed in the Hosnian explosion.
Leia's "disenchantment" with the New Republic was the result of their failure to balance the ongoing tensions between the Populists (led by former Rebellion folks like herself who wanted to demilitarize, etc.), and the Centrists (post-Imperial supporters of more militarization, and an emphasis on law and order ~ which so far as we know is what fueled support for the FO to operate unchecked).

the New Republic was a failure. it was still trying to find its legs when the FO destroyed it. there is no Republic now.

you seem to be mixing the Rebellion/Resistance and the New Republic. those are two completely different things. yes, the Rebellion won, but what it created in terms of government was a mess of politicking, extremism, corruption, and idealism that couldn't find a way to get along. Leia was ousted from the Senate due to her connection to Darth Vader and from there realized the power that the people who would become the FO were amassing. in the years leading up to TFA, she's been trying to gather evidence against them and raise concerns to bring to the New Republic that will be taken seriously. up until TFA, the FO was quietly doing their thing. they were literally on nobodies radar as a serious threat.

the details of all of this is not in the movies; it's basically summed up in the crawl and in tiny snippets of dialogue from Lor San Tekka and others.
Bloodline really is essential reading if you want to understand what's going on politically in galaxy. i know people don't like that, but there it is.

so again, there is no Republic.
there may be scattered leadership who didn't perish in the Hosnian system, but the galaxy is without rule (there are no two behemoths).
Kylo Ren has basically declared himself Supreme Leader and clearly intends to govern; whether people will follow him remains to be seen.

i do agree with you, however, about extremism as a theme that needs to be addressed.

the fight in ix is likely to be a fight against either some greater unknown threat, or some faction of the FO that goes rogue.
already the leadership there is at odds ideologically.
the old imperial remnants want to restore their former glory.
the young FO leadership wants to create new order without the imperial corruption and bureaucracy.
and who knows what the new Supreme Leader wants. lasting peace, balance, an end to decades of retributions on both sides? he wants to burn it all down.

i think that's how this tiny Resistance (now Rebellion) will win: turning the FO one way or another.
the problem with the New Republic, as you mentioned, was that it was full of extremes ~ it lacked balance.
the galaxy cannot be ruled by self-interested political parties. they have to learn to work together.
Rey and Ren Ben exemplify this. only together could they could defeat Snoke.

 

I think a lot of people assumed after the defeat of the Empire a perfect government would arise but what happened was akin to what happened after most major geopolitical conflicts. A power vacuum. There was no plan or set idea of what to do by the rebellion and as @FN-3263827 said, it allowed the First Order to essentially grow unchecked and make a play for power. There are dozens of examples of this all throughout history when an authoritative regime is displaced by any means and then a new government is put in place only to be ousted themselves by another regime.
You can google these power vacuums and see how similar they are to the described rise of the FO.

 

you still seem to be confusing the New Republic with the Resistance.
the New Republic did not make a counterstrike on Starkiller Base. the Resistance did.
there is no New Republic once the Hosnian system is destroyed. the fleet was largely destroyed with it.
the Resistance, so far as we know, has existed for about 6 or 7 years before TFA.
its sole function prior to the attack on Takodana had been to lay low and gather intel on the FO.
TFA is literally the start of the "war".

also, the New Republic and the Resistance have exactly zero to do with each other.
the Resistance, unlike the FO, is actually operating outside of any jurisdiction at the start of TFA.

your conclusions are not incorrect here, which means you did glean the essence of what's happening from the films.

the problem, i think, is that we come to the New Republic with our biases intact from the OT: well, they must be the good guys and the FO are "obviously" the bad guys. but that's not how it actually works. just because the Rebellion toppled the Empire doesn't make it "the good guys" now that they are trying to govern the galaxy according to their own interests. the other false assumption people come to the ST with is that the Resistance and the FO are at war prior to the attack on the Hosnian system. they are not. they have had undercover skirmishes (and again, the Resistance are basically antagonizing an authorized military organization; they're the "terrorists", technically). firing Starkiller Base was the salvo that actually kicks off the war and shows the FO's hand.

Leia is a general in her Resistance only (she is formerly a general of the Rebellion and formerly a senator). and the reason why the New Republic doesn't listen to her is because, again, the FO is sanctioned whereas her Resistance is not. she has basically gone rogue since leaving the Senate. yes, she has friends there, but also many enemies ~ and the public distrusts her. fair enough, that's not in the movies, but it's also not critical except to people who want to understand the political sphere, which, again, you can get in depth in Bloodline.

the thing is: young audiences aren't interested in the particulars of power vacuums and Senate quibbling. the EU is there to complement the experience. and the movies are never going to satisfy all our questions; they're not meant to explain everything, especially about aspects of the story that aren't important to our viewpoint characters.

maybe now that Rey and Finn are full invested in the Resistance/Rebellion, we'll get more information. it may also be important to understand Leia and Ben and Darth Vader--how that plays into all of this; and whatever power dynamic we find ourselves in at the opening of ix. but before now it didn't really matter.

you mention the choking scene in the OT; i'll point out that the FO makes it statements in TFA: Hux's speech is their justification and lays out their rationale in far more detail than anything that was ever stated in the OT. maybe we just don't believe him because, again, he's the "bad guy" and because he's screeching. but you can't dismiss those grievances. they are an explicit part of the fabric of this world.

 

Largely agree with what's being said here. The Resistance is not the New Republic, it's a break away and unsanctioned because Leia saw the threat that the Republic could not/did not until it was too late. Both the FO and the Resistance had sympathizers within the Republic government, but the New Republic is essentially no more. It's military and legislative bodies were largely eradicated (thus the reason the FO reigns supreme in the crawl of TLJ). While there is no formal federal military force now, there are still systems that have some military capacity and material resources (people to whom Leia called for help in TLJ to no avail).

So in TLJ we have the only 2 formal factions (both much smaller than their predecessors) and one (the Resistance) much smaller than their opposition (the FO). Rumor mill is suggesting that there will be a new enemy rise. I found this idea intriguing but ultimately I wonder if they'll elect to introduce new players to the stage while trying to wrap up a 9 movie anthology. Seems unlikely (to me) even if it would be interesting.