Well LOK is more explicit and pointed in its political issues, and specifically I find that having Zaheer and the Red Lotus be anarchists who just want chaos for the sake of chaos (I think they even go so far as to say that “chaos should be the natural order of things”) is a pretty ridiculous straw man of Anarchism as an ideology that serves a liberal agenda– the idea that “Yeah ok maybe our leaders might be kinda bad but at least you don’t have to live in complete lawlessness! At least we have rules!”

I also think that the show is just a liiiiittle bit too cozy with cops/law enforcement and capitalism in general. Lin Beifong is a cop (extremely funny considering Toph’s origins, which is also funny because she became a fuckin police chief too), Mako is a detective, Asami is literally an industrial capitalist who inherited a fortune and whose father was only bad because he worked with Da Bad Guys™ and not because he’s, you know… Super exploitative in his practices or anything. It seems like the only thing they’re kind of right on in this regard is that Kuvira, who is a psycho power tripping cop, attempts to become a fascist dictator and Bolin naively joins her conquest thinking that she’s just “uniting the Earth Kingdom”. That depiction of a quick descent into fascism from unchecked authority is pretty good, but even then deigns to discuss why that might happen and just criticizes the fact that it happened at all instead.

With that being said I think you’re totally right that the show does do a really good job at exploring trauma and personal responsibility. There’s definitely a lot that LOK gets right and on a more personal and individual level it’s way more open about that sort of thing than ATLA ever was. However it’s tough to reconcile just how stupid some of the show’s political angles can be when the show is largely about politics in a new age.