While the politics in Dryden's poem can seem distant and unrelatable, they raise similar debates. How much power should the leader of a country have? Should they be above the law? What is the right balance of power between the executive branch of government (king/president) and the legislative (Parliament/Congress)? These questions are as contested now as in the seventeenth century.

Throughout the poem, Dryden returns to the theme that kings should not be subjected to control by the government. Using the doctrine of the divine right of kings, he argues that God directly grants monarchs their authority.

Supporters of the divine rights doctrine asserted that the monarch's power was absolute and unrestricted. Because kings derived their authority from God, they did not need to bend to the people's will. This perspective fostered a hierarchical social order with the king at the top. His decisions were considered unquestionable.

In this vein, Dryden's narrator presents King David as a wise and just ruler who was divinely chosen to lead the nation. This theme serves as a defense of King Charles II, who faced political challenges and attempts to undermine his authority. By asserting the divine right of kings, Dryden tries to justify the legitimacy of the monarchy and condemn those who seek to restrict its power.

The poem raises concern that the desires of the "rabble" and the "dregs of democracy" will be allowed to overpower the will of the king, God's representative on earth. It warns of plots meant to "raise up commonwealths and ruin kings." Without a strong king, Dryden argues, disorder will be rampant.

It is worth noting that while Dryden supported the divine rights of kings in this poem, John Locke was soon to write his Two Treatises of Government, arguing that a ruler's power comes from the consent of the governed. Locke's work would have a profound impact on world history. 

One of the central themes in Absalom and Achitophel is the destructive nature of political ambition and the corruption it breeds. The poem portrays the ambitious Achitophel, who manipulates the good-hearted young Absalom to further his own political ends as evil.

Despite Absalom's goodness of heart and loyalty to his father, Achitophel can corrupt him by flattering him. The narrator notes,

What cannot praise effect in mighty minds,
When flattery soothes, and when ambition blinds?

Absalom says the narrator is "debauched with praise." Shaftesbury can use Absalom's ambition by twisting it into the idea that he is protecting the king:

And that your arms may have a fair pretence,
Proclaim you take them in the king's defence;
Whose sacred life each minute would expose
To plots, from seeming friends, and secret foes.

The poem cautions the reader to beware of how words and power can be misused. Like Eve being tempted by Satan to eat the apple, Absalom is tempted to rebel against God by a smooth talker with his own agenda.

Dryden portrays the loyalists who stand by King David as virtuous and honorable, while those who conspire against the king are depicted as traitors. The character of Achitophel, in particular, embodies betrayal as he turns against King David in his pursuit of power. This theme underscores the importance of loyalty to maintaining a stable social order. Innovation—changing the traditional way things are done, such as by interfering with succession—is a serious problem in a class by itself:

All other errors but disturb a state;
But innovation is the blow of fate.

It is thus highly ironic that seven years after the publication of Absalom and Achitophel, parliament would overthrow the Catholic James II and install William and Mary on the throne, establishing a constitutional monarchy.