Strawman Political: Sound Familiar?

If Wikipedia is the place to go for facts, TV Tropes is the place to go for wisdom.

The website tracks and chronicles the well-tested devices that television writers use to connect with us, the audience. And there is a lot of wisdom to be had in the tricks that the TV people use to charm us. When TV tries to show us fictional politics, for instance, the devices of plot and character it employs both reflect and shape the way we, ourselves, think about politics. Such is the nature of "media."

Tvtropes.org is, in fact, one of the best things the Internet has given us humans so far - a mirror.

From the tvtropes.org home page:

"Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations..."

"...Tropes transcend television. They exist in life, as we will be quick to tell you. Art in any form does its best to reflect life, so tropes show up everywhere."

To read about how TV writers construct political bad guys is to take a peek into the playbooks of the partisan wings. As Americans well know, political "debate" really has nothing to do with the logical construction of arguments and counter-arguments. It means the art of characterization - writing and projecting your own narrative, while forcing an inferior narrative on your opponent.

This is especially true in college, when so many of our identities are so sloppily mixed up in our ideologies. To hear how TV writers depict strawmen politicians is to hear the College Democrats talk about the College Republicans, or the Social Justice Alliance talk about the Enduring Freedom Alliance.

Maybe they're all just watching too much TV.

Without further tiresome exposition, I give you "Strawman Political," as defined by tvtropes.org (visit the site for the whole story, and other devices that may or may not operate as mirrors):

"In the real world, everyone is the hero of their own story, and this extends to their beliefs, especially political. There is a tendency to demonize the competition, though, even when it goes against one's own self-interest.

"Seriously, nobody who is Pro-Choice thinks of themselves as 'baby-killers', and nobody who is Pro-Life thinks of themselves as 'wanting to control women's uteruses.' You wouldn't know this from just looking at how the other side is described, though. Thus a character who has the 'wrong' view is construed to be a total idiot and/or evil for the sake of being evil.

"For example, the Strawman Liberal, a character ostensibly meant to represent someone with liberal political views, but who appears to be based more on conservative misrepresentations of liberal belief rather than on anything liberals actually believe. Common in pro-religious literature and programming and in fiction with a strong right-leaning ideological bent. Expect a hippy, with pacifism, political correctness, and free love sorta thing. May or may not be doing it all because they hate God. There also tends to be a focus on letting obviously guilty folk go into the wild. They're doing it for the innocent children, though.

"Its counterpart, the Strawman Conservative, is likewise found frequently in fiction with a left-leaning ideological bent. The Strawman Conservative is either heavily religious, very traditional, and rabidly afraid to the point of intolerance of anybody who doesn't fit the first two criteria, and will try to have the law of the land rewritten to exclude or marginalize them. They're doing it for the innocent children, though.

"Another type of Strawman Conservative is a greedy, Machiavellian Smug Snake-esque character who cares only about the bottom line, while a third type can be both at once. While the first variety can at least be said, like the Strawman Liberal, to have 'good' intentions, the second can lay no such claim, and thus can serve as a primary antagonist as well as a simple obstruction.

"Characters of these types are often extremely one-dimensional — every aspect of their characterization is tied to the (mis)representation of their political philosophy. While always adversarial to the heroes, their role is usually obstructionist rather than outright antagonistic, and is usually played in a 'It would be so much easier to get things done if it weren't for these pie-in-the-sky so-and-so's' sense. Sometimes, the character may, through his "good" intentions, actually be doing the bidding of the Big Bad. The Granola Girl may fall under this. Black Shirts can be be used this way too, as they fanatically embrace whatever politics the main antagonist faction espouses. Some writers go the whole hog and have President Strawman elected to high office; depending on whether the writer agrees with President Strawman, he'll either be a flawless saint composed entirely of pure virtue and honor or he'll be a baby-eating psycho — or, if they're feeling generous, possibly a clueless jackass.

"The presence of such characters is often jarring and sometimes offensive to people who actually hold the beliefs that are being misrepresented. This is especially annoying when a normal member of the cast suddenly loses IQ points to deliver An Aesop.

"Another type of Strawman Political is someone who is unable to effectively argue their side. The hero makes a statement and the Strawman Political who is on the other side of the conversation is unable to make a decent rebuttal. This 'proves' that the hero was right, because their opponent's statement is obviously incorrect or naive.

"What's truly disturbing is on the occasions when audience members begin to support such a character's views... You'd think this would be far from Truth In Television, but with people like Fred Phelps and Jack Thompson in existence, the far fringes of both sides can make you reconsider.

"Of course, as the Master said: 'For a lie to work, it must be shrouded in truth.'"