Fictional Political Party: Difference between revisions

[[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|Made-up political parties appearing in fiction.]]

Most often these are [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/:Single-issue_politicsissue politics#Single-issue_partiesissue parties|parties promoting only a single issue]], but the [['''Fictional Political Party]]''' can be used in a variety of ways to enrich the political environment of a fictional world.

Occasionally, a story taking place in a [[The Future|Future]] setting may suggest that two or more [[Real Life]] political parties from the present day will have combined into a single party, for example, "The Republocrats." For added humor, combine two modern day parties with conflicting ideologies, like the "Traditional Progressive Party."<ref>Not to be confused with [[Canada]]'s Real Life "[[w:Progressive Conservative Party|Progressive Conservative Party]]".</ref> Likewise, an [[Alternate History]] story may rewrite political history, suggesting that a party developed a similar yet different platform, compared to their actual counterpart, or even suggesting that major parties fizzled out while minor ones became big players long after they had disbanded in the real world.

See Also: [[No Party Given]], [[Strawman Political]], and [[A Nazi Byby Any Other Name]].

* In ''[[Judge Dredd]]'', the only democratic freedom allowed to the citizens of Mega-City One is the election of the city's Mayor, a very minor role that serves as a liaison between citizens and Justice Department. When the election campaign for [[EverythingsEverything's Better Withwith Monkeys|Dave the Orangutan]] was covered in the story arc, "Portrait of a Politician," just about every social clique was shown to have formed its own political party and running its own candidate, many of which would kill each other in mob riots leading up to the election. Named parties include the Apathetic Fringe (who don't care about any issues), the Young Norms (presumably an anti-[[Mutants|mutant]] lobby), the Lib-Lab Flab Party (presumably a Liberal-Labor party amongst the Big Meg's morbidly obese population), the Uglies (just ugly people), and the All-Out-War Party (basically a group of [[Bomb -Throwing Anarchists]]). When the All-Out-War Party starts stirring up trouble, Dredd gives them exactly what they want.

* A one-shot short that [[Alan Moore]] wrote for ''[[Two Thousand AD (Comic Book)|2000 AD]]'' called "Chronocops" (imagine "[[Time Travel]] [[X Meets Y|meets]] ''[[Dragnet]]''") saw the main characters travel to a [[Next Sunday ADA.D.|not-too-distant future]] Great Britain where [[Spear Carrier|one man handing out fliers]] encourages people to vote for "the Lab-Con Alliance" as the only way to defeat the Social Democrats, suggesting that the center-left Labour Party and the center-right Conservative Party with highly conflicting party platforms have somehow become a single party.

* [[Howard the Duck (Comic Bookcomics)|Howard the Duck]] ran for President in 1976 for the All Night Party with the slogan, "Get Down, America!"

* In ''[[Superman]]'' comics, [[President Evil|President]] [[Lex Luthor|Luthor]] represented the Tomorrow Party...well, to be precise, he ''founded'' the Tomorrow Party at a press conference where announced that he was running for President, but "not as a Democrat or a Republican, because both their ideas are too old." While the books didn't elaborate too much on the party's politics, what we saw during Lex's initial declaration of candidacy and in the months after he was elected indicated that the party's politics were probably centrist, with conservative viewpoints on fiscal issues and liberal views on social issues. Lex's platform also apparently contained a pledge to move towards renewable energy and to put technological innovation at the forefront of his platform. In the first few months of his presidency, Lex also "passed the most sweeping education reform in American history," but it was left deliberately vague as to what exactly those reforms were (which is probably for the best, seeing as how ''any'' type of education reform tends to be extremely contentious in [[Real Life]]).

** The Tomorrow Party seems to have dissolved after Lex's fall from power. [[Word of God]] says that in the months after Lex's fall when Vice President Pete Ross was left to run things, Pete had to deal with massive political fallout from Lex's fall. As of the DC: Decisions storyline, featuring Republican and Democratic Party candidates in danger, there was no more mention of the Tomorrow Party.

* [[Captain America (comics)]] featured a Presidential Candidate who started the Third Wing Party. It was all part of Red Skull's latest evil scheme.

* [[A Nazi Byby Any Other Name|Norsefire]] from ''[[V for Vendetta]]''. In the film, the party came to power after a democratic election. In the graphic novel, they come to power is after labor victory fulfilled their pledge to leave NATO and were blamed for causing World War 3, but [[Alan Moore]] models them as a [[Fictional Counterpart]] to [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Front:British National Front|the British National Front.]]

== Film ==.

* In ''[[Death Race 2000]]'', Frankenstein runs over "The Deacon of the Bipartisan Party" for 50 points. Apart from both running and sponsoring the titular death race and having religious figures in positions of power in the party, not much is known about this party's platform or political views.

** The Rights of Sentience Party is a party in the New Republic that grew out of a lobbyist group with a similar aim, [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|to protect the rights of sentient species]].

** The POWER Party (that's [[Fun Withwith Acronyms|Preserve Our Wild Endangered Resources]] Party) of the planet Telos IV was an organization created in opposition to the Telosian government granting a [[Mega Corp]] control over the planet's national parks and sacred lands for the mining of resources, which the POWER Party believed should be illegal.

* In the [[Star Trek Novel Verse]], the Parliament Andoria is split between the Visionists (who are conservative and somewhat isolationist), and the strongly pro-Federation Modern Progessive party (liberal). On planet Mestiko, meanwhile, there's the Payavist Inward Party, which objected to alien interference in the world's rebuilding following the "pulse" disaster. It eventually overthrew the ''Zamestaad'' government in a coup (see [[Star Trek: Mere Anarchy]]). Finally, on Kropasar, the two major parties are named "Agreement" and "Consensus".

* The "Clean US Party" ([[Fun Withwith Acronyms|CUSP]]), led by crooner Johnny Gentle in [[David Foster Wallace]]'s [[Door StopperDoorstopper]] ''[[Infinite Jest]]'' (set [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]] relative to the early 1990s, or in other words, about now). The party is deeply, deeply concerned with keeping the United States "clean and tight" (as President Gentle puts it), to the point of dumping ridiculous amounts of toxic waste in a part of New England so that they can give it to Canada (and thus not be in the US anymore). Yes, it's that kind of novel.

* ''[[Nineteen Eighty -Four|1984]]'' brings us 'The Party'. Simply 'The Party' since they've long since gotten rid of the competition, forming a totalitarian regime. Judging from what little history we can discern, they were originally a very left/communist party which formed in Britain or Europe, eventually succeeding in revolution. Of course, their communist beliefs about social equality were all just a sham, or have long since become one- the only thing The Party wants is power.

** There are ([[Unreliable Expositor|according to The Party's propaganda]]) two similar parties controlling the rest of the world, Eurasia apparently following Neo-Bolshevism; whilst Eastasia follows a philosophy "called by a Chinese name usually translated as Death-worship, but perhaps better rendered as 'Obliteration of the Self'".

* [[Harry Turtledove]]'s ''[[Timeline-191]]'' series has the Freedom Party, [[A Nazi Byby Any Other Name|a counterpart to the Nazis]] set in Confederate America. "Freedom from blacks", that is; after a black communist uprising, they decided that slavery wasn't going far enough. Prior to the rise of the Freedom Party, the two main political parties in the Confederacy were the Whigs and the Radical Liberals.

** In the same series, the United States' two main parties are the right-wing Democrats and the left-wing Socialists, with the centrist Republicans as a minor third party that draws most of its support from the agrarian [[Flyover Country]] states. Party colours are also different (as they are [[Newer Than They Think]] in real history) with the Socialists using red, the Republicans using yellow, and the Democrats using red, white and blue together due to [[Patriotic Fervour]].

* The [[There Is No Such Thing Asas Notability|German young adult book]] ''Machtspiel'' by Andreas Schlüter features a politician of the 'Freie Soziale Demokratische Union' (Free Social Democratic Union), a combination of the names of the 3 most important parties in [[The Bonn Republic|Germany]].

* In Norman Spinrad’s ''[[Bug Jack Barron (Literature)|Bug Jack Barron]]'', Jack becomes the Presidential Candidate of both the left-wing Social Justice Coalition and the Republican Party, and stands against “Teddy and his ghosts” of the Democratic Party.

* The episode "Dish And Dishonesty" from ''[[Black AdderBlackadder]] the Third'' uses these in a parody of British election conventions. After the constituent of rotten borough Dunny-on-the-Wold (consisting of nothing more than a tiny plot of land, many farm animals, and only one voter) suddenly died, Prince Regent and Blackadder decide to run Baldrick as their own candidate and tip Parliament in their favor. Baldrick runs on behalf of the "Adder Party," a name that becomes much more appropriate when it turns out that Blackadder was both the borough's Returning Officer and lone voter after both died in freak "accidents." Other fictitious parties on the ballot included "Keep Royalty White, Rat Catching And Safe Sewage Residents' Party" and the "Standing at the Back Dressed Stupidly and Looking Stupid Party" (whose party line stands for "the compulsory serving of asparagus at breakfast, free corsets for the 'under-fives,' and [[The Triple|the abolition of slavery]]").

* In ''[[Decades of Darkness]]'', the major parties of the United States are the Democrats and the Patriots, who are later replaced by the Unionists, and the major parties of the Republic of New England are the Federalists, Radicals, and Republicans.

[[Category:Fictional Political Party{{PAGENAME}}]]