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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"Oh my God! The dead have risen and they're voting Republican!"''
|'''[[The Simpsons (animation)|Bart Simpson]]''', in "Sideshow Bob Roberts," on finding the tomb of a [[Vote Early, Vote Often|"registered voter" who died in 1909]]}}
A boxer steps into the ring and declares that today the crowd will watch as he pulverizes the reigning world champion. He then produces a straw dummy that looks a little like his supposed opponent, beats the hell out of it, and declares himself the victor. This is the
A
A strawman can have pretty much any ideological stance, with political
A sub-type of straw character is the sounding board, a character who makes points on their side purely so a character the author agrees with can reply with devastating comebacks that prove the first character's foolishness. The straw character is left stumped by the author's obvious wisdom, and will struggle to reply or explode angrily to show how unreasonable they are.
Characters of this type
The American strawmen sometimes fall into one of these categories (see [[Political Stereotype]]):
[[Sub-Trope
* [[Cruella to Animals]]
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The strawman is a relative of the [[Windmill Political|Windmill]]. While a strawman is a dumbed down version of a real enemy or threat, a windmill is not at all the threat it's believed to be - if it even ''exists'' in the first place. A person who [[Windmill Crusader|honestly fights such windmills]] can be used as a [[Straw Loser]], while a [[Manipulative Bastard|dishonest person]] who tricks others into fighting windmills typically is a [[Straw Hypocrite]].
Not to be confused with [[Plant Person]] or [[Scary Scarecrows]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Almost every evangelist tract by [[Jack Chick]] features strawmen liberals as villains. Often he proves his arguments by having a character argue down a [[Strawman Political]].
** A particularly bad one is "Big Daddy", which consists mostly of a blatant [[Gary Stu]] debating evolution with a [[Strawman Political]] science teacher. Guess who wins?
** Jack Chick outdid himself in a Crusaders and Alberto comics, where the main characters meet new political strawmen every issue who state things such as the Catholic Church is really a front for [[The Illuminati]] or Communism is actually a form of Satanism.
* Goldilocks, from the Vertigo comic ''[[Fables]]'', seems to be this at first, with every negative stereotype about liberal feminists you can think of, spouting Communist rhetoric, exclaiming "Oh my Goddess!" at every turn; however, it turns out it's all an act to cynically manipulate her followers. Also, she's insane.
* In an issue of ''
* The [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] version of [[Lex Luthor]] occasionally edged into Strawman Conservative territory, though when the character actually ran for president the writers were careful not to describe his political leanings at all. Though it's worth noting that at one point, Green Arrow decries something President Luthor has done with "This would never happen with a Democrat in the White House!" (Green Arrow's own leftist strawman status is debatable; make your own decision on whether his statement there was meant as a strawman's or dead serious.) In his defense, approximately 100% of Democrats ''aren't'' Lex Luthor, so he's probably right. Although the whole "supervillain" issue is probably more relevant. On the other hand, approximately 100% of Republicans ''aren't'' Lex Luthor, either – the comic books showed he was a third-party candidate.
** The animated "Batman/Superman: Public Enemies" avoids this by making Luthor a third-party independent.
** Luthor was a third
* [[The DCU]] super-duo, Hawk and Dove, were ''created'' to exemplify this trope. In the original stories, penned by Objectivist [[Steve Ditko]], Dove, the pacifist, is portrayed as weak-willed, vacillating, and ineffectual, while his aggressive brother Hawk is the only one who manages to accomplish anything. Almost every writer ''since'' Ditko has portrayed Hawk as a thoughtlessly belligerent borderline berserker, with the rational, thoughtful Dove providing the only rational check on his action. Only rarely do we see a story where both viewpoints are treated with anything approaching equal regard, or a writer who admits the possibility that the different approaches might be appropriate in different situations. Ironically, this mainly came to the fore when Ditko was working with Steve Skeates, the more liberal co-creator of the duo. Characterization veered from side to side depending on who was doing the main plotting, until Skeates finally left the book over how Dove was being made into a wimp. When Hawk and Dove were later revived, the whole "conservative vs. liberal" thing was quietly dropped in the dustbin, and the two were recast as agents of Order (Dove) and Chaos (Hawk) meant to find a balance in tumultuous situations. Bonus Points: their father was a judge and always told them that they needed to see and understand each other's side. Later taken to extremes when Hawk [[Flanderization|murdered Dove and became a brutal militaristic dictator.]] And then taken to an even greater extreme during Blackest Night, where Dove I is apparently the only dead person in the entire universe who is at peace.
** This all becomes rather strange when you consider that the peaceful, pacifist, Dove constantly telling Hawk that not all problems are solved by running around in spandex and punching people in the face is portrayed as unfailingly right by most writers, when the setting revolves around people running around in spandex and punching people in the face.
** It's also important to remember that [[Values Dissonance|throughout most of the 1960s, before the antiwar mindset truly entered the liberal mainstream]], it was possible to be a liberal ''and'' a hawk,
** In the [[Justice League Unlimited|JLU]] episode ''Hawk and Dove'', they were portrayed once again as Straw Conservative and Liberal respectively, and while Hawk was once again portrayed as an over-aggressive brute vs Dove's pacifist outlook, though Hawk's behavior was tempered by his stated need to protect his brother, whom he saw as "weak".
*** Keep in mind, they were introduced in an episode where [[Contrived Coincidence|the only way to beat the enemy was to refuse to fight him]]. Because ''that'' happens to the Justice League so often.
* The ''Daily Planet'' columnist Dirk Armstrong in ''[[Superman]]'' was created as a strawman conservative, though some later writers gave him more depth and sympathetic qualities, such as having to raise a blind teenage daughter on his own. His strawman status should have been obvious, given his physical resemblance to [[Rush Limbaugh]]. While he is portrayed initially as a Superman fan (for being tough on crime), he is the first to turn on Superman after he loses control of his powers and becomes an energy being... though [[Dork Age|in hindsight]], he might have been the [[Only Sane Man]] on this subject! Thankfully, soon after that storyline ended, he was [[Put on a Bus]] and has not been seen since.
** Some writers that handled the character seemed to think that any conservative leaning, ''at all'', constituted being a
* Many argue that [[Iron Man]] (and many of the pro-registration heroes, such as Mr. Fantastic) became one of these in the [[Marvel Comics]] [[Crisis Crossover]] ''[[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]]'', which dealt with [[Super Registration Act|superhero registration]]; originally, both sides were to be intended to have equally valid and reasonable justifications for the positions they adopted, but writers penning anti-registration stories kept having [[Iron Man]]
** This idea is left broken and bleeding on the curb when you realize that many of the atrocities Iron Man committed
**
** Those parts weren't nearly the big problem. The big problem happened in the ''Front Line'' spinoff, in which Tony used mind-controlling nanobots on Norman Osborn, so the latter would attempt to assassinate an Atlantean diplomat in an effort to start a war with Atlantis. All of this to unite the heroes against a common threat so the in-fighting would stop, never mind if they had to commit genocide on the Atlanteans to do it. Making this even more suspect is that the author, Paul Jenkins, presents this as a good and responsible course of action, and his character Sally Floyd (a former strawman liberal), after a period of "awakening, wherein her horizons, insights, and character grows into Republican territory" applauds this as a truly heroic decision, rather than doing her job as a journalist by reporting his actions. This was the only action of Tony that was so outright out-of-character villainous that the incident has been treated to a complete [[Hand Wave]] ignore button afterwards.
*** Given the time period when these comics were being written, it sounds like most of the authors were trying to turn Iron Man into George W Bush (or Dick Cheney) and disagreed about whether or not Bush was right.
** Made worse when ''the same writers'' started using Tony as a punching bag, for example JMS, the writer of most of the above, would later have Thor beat up Tony.
** ''Invincible Iron Man'' has been averting
** And as of ''Dark Reign'', Stark
** Characters like [[The Scrappy|annoying twit Sally Floyd]], who would be an obvious strawman liberal under most other writers (
* ''[http://accstudios.com/f/synopsis1.htm Liberality For All]'' is summarized as such: ''It is 2021, tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of 9/11. America is under oppression by ultra-liberal extremists who have surrendered governing authority to the United Nations. Hate speech legislation called the "Coulter Laws" have forced vocal conservatives underground. A group of bio-mechanically enhanced conservatives led by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy, Oliver North, and a young man born on September 11, 2001, set out to thwart Ambassador Usama bin Laden's plans to nuke New York City.'' As hard it may seem to believe, this series does contain one or two strawman liberal depictions.
* ''[[Normalman]]'' has both a Strawman Liberal ''and'' a Strawman Conservative, and they're technically the same character. That is, the malevolent, overzealous reactionary nutjob Ultra-Conservative, and his alternate personality, the radical, chaotic anarchist Liberalator. Ultra-Conservative eventually suppresses the transformation by thinking about "commie agitators", "pinko faggots", and the "death penalty" while shouting that he "will not '''''change!'''''"
* The various ''[[X-Men]]'' and spinoff series semi-regularly feature intolerant, hate-preaching [[wikipedia:Purifiers|fundamentalist groups]] obviously based off televangelists and Southern Baptists with some Ku Klux Klan thrown in for good measure as villains. Several major arcs featured a Reverend Stryker becoming a major threat to the X-
* In [[Warren Ellis]]' ''[[Black Summer]]'', [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] John Horus assassinates the US President, who's actions bear a striking resemblance to the accusations leveled at [[George W. Bush]]. This is treated by many of the others with a reaction generally equitable to "Sure, man, we all would have loved to have done it, that doesn't mean you ''should have''."
* ''[[Green Arrow]]'': Oliver Queen was shown as a hero for the people in his earlier stories, and had a majorly left-wing agenda, referring to rich conservatives as fat cats. Occasionally though, in more recent stories writers will let Queen's negative qualities such as his self-
** Miller went overboard rather strongly in ''DK 2'', but Queen had taken to cynically gaming the system in ''[[The Dark Knight Returns]]'', which might explain his later histrionics as a means to keep a smokescreen up lest his cohorts turn on him like Superman had when {{spoiler|he burned off Queen's arm with heat vision in the backstory}}. Like Ollie said, "You have to make the bastards work for you."
* An early Garth Ennis issue of ''[[The Punisher]]'' had the titular vigilante (of all people) threatening President Bush, claiming the US brought 9/11 on itself, and ranting about the military industrial complex a mere few weeks after the attacks happened in [[Real Life]].
* Any politician who appears in ''[[The Authority]]'' will be depicted as corrupt, greedy and too dumb to live. They also will be all Strawman Conservatives - and the more vocally they are opposed to the titular group of
* Silver Age comics had some Straw Man Communists, especially in ''[[Iron Man]]'' with guys like Titanium Man and Crimson Dynamo. These guys come across as cartoonish caricatures of a what a communist is supposed to be rather then part of any criticism that has any depth. Your average communist villain in the Silver age was about as deep as a [[Captain Planet]] villain. Since the focus was on their ideology rather then their characters they have remained [[Flat Character]] types and kinda pointless after the Berlin Wall fell. The focus wasn't on their ideology (which was hardly even mentioned), the focus was on providing an [[Acceptable Targets|acceptable target]] for [[Iron Man]] to beat up. The writers were too lazy to think up a real motivation for enemies to attack, so they decided that the [[Monster of the Week]] attacked the hero because they were Communists, and [[
== [[Film]] ==▼
▲== Film ==
* In Penthouse Pictures' ''[[Caligula]]'', McDowell's titular role leads soldiers into Gaul, has them cut down reeds there, and returns claiming to have conquered Gaul.
* ''[[The American President
** The real straw is in the misapplication. By Douglas's admission, he was playing an idealized Clinton but his "scandal" was being a single man and dating a woman, which is a lot more innocent than what Republicans will attack in real life as being a breach of family values. In real life, the focus would have been entirely on the President advocating for the legislation of a lobbyist that he met in the process of her lobbying for it. They'd have the right under those circumstances to call for investigation into abuse of power (because they aren't privy to what we know about the situation.)
* ''[[The Contender]]'' stars Joan Allen as a U.S. Senator (formerly moderate Republican, now a Democrat, and a pro-choice atheist to boot) who is nominated for the Vice Presidency after the incumbent veep is killed. A Republican Congressman tries to block the nomination by dredging up her sexual past, but is unsuccessful, thanks in no small part to the efforts of the (Democratic) President. The "good guys" and "bad guys" are easy to spot. (Gary Oldman, who played the Republican Congressman, and the film's producer subsequently accused [[DreamWorks]] Pictures executives of [[Executive Meddling|re-editing the film]], which came out three weeks prior to the 2000 election, to make the Democrats more sympathetic.)
* ''[[Shoot'Em Up (film)|Shoot
* ''[[La Cage aux Folles]]'', and its [[Foreign Remake|American remake]] ''[[The Birdcage]]'', feature an obvious strawman in the father of a gay man's son's fiancée. The French version has deputy Simon Charrier being played by Michel Galabru, who turns the straw into pure comedic awesomeness. This being a ''French'' movie, Sarrier was not meant to be a strawman conservative, but a religious extremist: unlike the US and its Two Party System, French religious extremists do not get along well with French conservatives and usually French conservatives do not feel they are targeted when watching the movie
** And his goals in the movie isn't that absurd: he wants to get reelected and is facing a scandal that REALLY isn't his fault. What he's against is seeming even more ridiculous in the eyes of the American public and especially HIS supporters. If you're against gay rights, it would be bad to see your senator's daughter marrying the son of a kooky, gay couple.▼
:While the Senator in ''[[The Birdcage]]'' is pretty strawmannish, it's easy enough to view it as just a sign of the ridiculous exaggeration and silliness that pervades all the characters. He's a kooky, over-the-top example of far-right politicians because the family of his daughter's fiancé is a kooky, over-the-top example of a gay couple.
▲** And his goals in the movie isn't that absurd: he wants to get reelected and is facing a scandal that
* ''[[Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay]]''. Almost every time politics of any type is expressed.
* ''[[Blue State]]'' is actually more politically complex than the concept (two people moving to Canada after Bush gets re-elected) would imply, but the protagonist's father is a definite conservative [[Strawman Political]]: he greets his son by calling him "Comrade Lenin," locks him for voting for Kerry, and begins to act like a deranged [[Bill O Reilly]] on mushrooms when his son argues with him, screaming out to "cut his mic," and eventually throws his son out of the house.
* Mexican film ''Un Mundo Maravilloso'' was deliberately made as a giant leftist [[Take That]] to the liberal economic policies of recent governments in Mexico (but more specifically [[wikipedia:Vicente Fox|Vicente
{{quote|
'''Robert:''' No no no, we Americans also like dictatorships like yours.
'''Morales:''' Is it true that your countrymen are still angry from the Mexican oil expropriation?
'''Robert:''' Well a little... yeah. But my countrymen know that one day we will recover all of that, and in time more, much more. }}
* In ''[[Hiding Out]]'', Jon Cryer is an adult accountant hiding out as a high school student. In a history class, the strawman conservative teacher gives a weak and histrionic defense of Richard Nixon as Cryer's character struggles to bite his tongue.
* ''[[Team America: World Police]]'' features gung-ho, collateral damage causing Strawman Conservatives taking on Strawman Liberal actors who help terrorists.
* ''[[But I'm a Cheerleader]]'' involved straw-conservatives trying to teach gay teens to recover their "true" sexuality via acting out stereotypical 1950's gender roles. [[Rule of Funny|Everyone in the movie is a stereotype of some sort.]]
* Most American action films from [[The Eighties]] were hostile to Straw Liberal or [[Straw Feminist]] views, with two typical varieties. In both cases, a female character has a limited number of roles: [[Victim of the Week]], [[
** [[Da Chief]] is always trying to get the [[Cowboy Cop]] to [[Turn in Your Badge|Turn In His Badge]] when all he and [[Buddy Cop Show|his partner]] need is [[You Have 48 Hours|two days]] free [[Vigilante Man|from procedural restraint]] to sweep the streets of [[The Aggressive Drug Dealer]] or the [[Ax Crazy]] [[Serial Killer]] who the useless justice system keeps letting [[Off on a Technicality]].
** [[The Government]] won't let the [[Military Maverick]] protect America and save [[No One Gets Left Behind|his buddies and those POWs]] from [[Dirty Communists]] or [[Terrorists Without a Cause]] because they keep trying diplomatic methods when [[Violence Is the Only Option]].
** Some of Stephen Seagal's films take the opposite approach, with the villains being [[CIA Evil, FBI Good|members of the American intelligence community]] or [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|evil polluters]].
** 80's Sci-fi was almost uniformly plagued by the evil Straw Conservative military; though sometimes the politics were thrown out and it was simply a Straw Military of ignorant thugs who
* ''[[Away We Go]]'' featured not so much a Strawman Political, but a Strawman Lifestyle, in showing a "crunchy" family as ridiculous and unfit parents, with an inconsiderate, rambly, condescending wife who screeches like a harpy when presented with a stroller and a husband who just agrees with everything his wife says and mumbles something about the family bed (and is entirely forgettable, probably intentionally). You're clearly supposed to be giggling along with the protagonist couple at the silly crunchies when, in reality, there are plenty of reasons to not use a stroller, breastfeed into toddlerhood, or have a family bed.
* The documentary ''[[Atomic Cafe]]'' compiles videos of [[WW 2]] and post-[[WW 2]] era American pro-war propaganda. One of these scenes is a stereotypical [[Straw Feminist]] in huge glasses [[Soapbox Sadie|on a soapbox]] claiming that Communist countries want peace and are all-around great countries. She is a classic Straw War Protester.
* If there's one thing that ''[[The Cell]]'' should be applauded for besides its visuals, it's the fact that it utterly averts this trope. Vince Vaughn's character blatantly disagrees with the film's overall view of treating criminals more compassionately, but his views (and any audience members who share these views) are still treated with respect by the director.
* The movie ''[[Red Planet (film)|Red Planet]]'' features a straw man atheist geneticist who offers no coherent support for his disbelief when debating with other characters.
* The final sequence in 1936's ''[[Things
* In the second ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]'' film, Director Galloway is the National Security
* Pick a movie, any movie, by Quebecer filmmaker Pierre Falardeau, and you'll find at least one, if not many, strawman politicals for federal government support or anti-separatists or just liberals in general.
* President Stone of the 2009 ''[[Astro Boy (film)|Astro Boy]]'' movie takes every single strawman conservative stereotype, and pushes them beyond their natural extremes. "(The film) seems to have a political agenda" indeed.
* Much of the student body was this in ''[[PCU]]'', but [[Played for Laughs]].
* Some people feel ''[[Super Size Me]]'' has this attitude towards fast food. Most people aren't going to eat nothing but McDonald's all day every day for a month. He even admits that he's forcing himself to eat large meals even when he's not actually hungry. All to supposedly make a point about how it's the restaurant's fault people get fat for saying "Would you like to super size that?"
* One of the villains of ''[[Machete]]'' is a Texas State Senator so virulent anti-immigrant that he occasionally rides along with a group of border vigilantes who shoot unarmed illegal immigrants coming over the border. Given that the movie is a [[Affectionate Parody|loving homage]] to over-the-top Grindhouse-style movies where subtlety was ''not'' considered a virtue, however, this is arguably intentionally over-the-top.
* Arguably every character in ''[[Saved]]'' except for the protagonist and her friends (and the protagonist at the beginning of the film) is a Straw Character. ''Saved!'' depicts a fundamentalist Christian private school. Most of the faculty, students, and parents connected to the school demonstrate both judgmentalism and an obliviousness to obvious realities due to their entrenched indoctrination. One particular scene deliberately sets up the type of devastating comeback mentioned in this trope:
{{quote|
'''Mary:''' [Mary hands Bible back to Hilary Faye] This is not a weapon, you idiot. }}
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSQSx3OCrXQ This] cartoon from the documentary ''For the Bible Tells Me So'' gives us a painfully obvious Straw Christian by the name of - any guesses? - [[Meaningful Name|Christian]].
== [[Literature]] ==▼
▲== Literature ==
* The global government in the ''[[Left Behind]]'' series starts out on the Straw-Lib end of the scale.
** ''Edge of Apocalypse'' (written in part by Tim Lahaye, co-author of the above) features a senator who is actually ''named'' Straworth. He and the majority of the politicians in the book (President included) are corrupt straw liberals.
* [[Ayn Rand]], as a [[Writer on Board]] promoting her philosophy of Objectivism, generally made the villains of her fictional works Strawman Socialists. In particular, not only does ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'' have lots and lots of Strawman Socialist villains, but their political beliefs are repeatedly blamed for every single disaster that happens in the story. In one episode, a passenger train is held up just short of a tunnel unsuitable for its steam locomotive, but is ordered to proceed nevertheless by a corrupt politician who is late for a rally and unwilling to wait for a diesel locomotive to carry the train through the tunnel. This means death for every passenger on board -- [[What a Senseless Waste of Human Life]], right?
* In a particularly [[Anvilicious]] case of [[Writer on Board]] and [[Author Filibuster]], in the ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' books author [[Terry Goodkind]] has done the strawman routine on everything from liberalism to socialism to traditional religion to democracy. All other ideals can only stand in the way of the true freedom that comes about under the rule of a benevolent Objectivist dictator. One who exhibits his fine morality with such acts as ordering the implementation of total war, and riding down peace protesters "Armed with only their hatred of moral clarity." Similarly, all proponents of religion are shown to be foolish by contrast to said dictator, who espouses that all must live their lives free from backwards religious beliefs because there can be no proof of life beyond death... [[Flat Earth Atheist|Despite having extensive personal experience with spirits]].
** His strawman routine on organized sports is particularly weird.
* Most politicians in ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' get this treatment in some way - the good guys fall almost entirely into the Crown Loyalist or Centrist parties, while the bad guys and just plain nutcases/cowards are generally Conservatives and Liberals.
** There are at least two exceptions in the later books - Catherine Montaigne, who is a Liberal and yet not a total nutcase (though many of her views overlap with those of the [[Centrists/C Ls|C Ls]]) though she first appeared in a side story written by Eric Flint. That being said, Weber's more recent books have been rather more evenhanded in portraying political opposition, making a significant plot point out of Montaigne's reconstruction of the Liberal Party around sincere ideology instead of Countess New Kiev's hypocrisy.
** Her views overlap with the Crown Loyalists'/Centrists because their views are, obviously, in the center (both parties fiscally and socially conservative, so their centrism is relative). The only way to avoid finding at least some common cause with them is to be on either the extreme right or left, and extreme views rarely turn out well. CL's and Centrists are lumped together because the Queen herself is just right of center (when she isn't royally pissed), and you wouldn't be a CL if you didn't mostly agree with the queen, or at least think that what she says goes. Even New Kiev comes off as the best of a bad lot among
*** Remember also that in this setting, things such as "universal public health care" are considered ''centrist'' positions.
** A second major exception comes in the form of Michael Oversteegen, notable for having the mannerisms of an aristocratic twit. He's the cousin of the leader of the strawman Conservative party, sincerely believes in the importance of a hereditary aristocracy (the Conservatives' main reason for existence)... and despises the corruption his cousin tolerates in the party. He's also a very talented and extremely brave naval officer.
** The Graysons are early on are strawman conservatives, but are at least mildly open to new ideas, and whose views shift closer to center for fairly realistic reasons (many of which center around Honor saving their asses several times, though their leaders had designs on reshaping the society even before she came along and gave them a symbol to rally around). The Grayson ultra-conservative faction are Strawman Conservatives, but look sane compared to the formerly-Grayson ultra-extremists of Masada, who are effectively the Space Taliban.
** The Graysons aren't really strawman types: they're very highly conservative, but it's a fairly natural development of their history and the [[Death World|extremely harsh conditions]] they live under.
*** Even their sexual chauvinism is given far more nuance than such portrayals usually are; very few fictional depictions of a patriarchy have the patriarchs contend that their primary obligation is to protect women from abuse.
* In another David Weber example, the ''[[Starfire]]'' novels (which, admittedly, are collaborative works) make it easy to tell who the sniveling mush-brained idiots of the Terran Federation are - they're the ones with
* In any novel by [[J. T. Edson]], any character described as
* Pick a book, ''any'' book (but even
* The [[S.M. Stirling]] series ''[[Island in The Sea of Time]]'' and sequels have straw liberals (hippies who can't believe in Evil Natives who therefore die horribly at the Evil Natives' hands) and straw conservatives (who complain about the lesbian Coast Guard officer). His other books have other straw opponents, who exist solely to make ineffectual trouble.
** Not only do the straw liberals in ''Island'' die horribly, they accidentally ''wipe out'' the very Mesoamerican natives they want to protect (by infecting them with mumps, to which the natives have no immunity).
**
*** And that a literal hippie blacksmith is an integral heroic character in the novels,
* Being a staunch socialist, [[Upton Sinclair]]'s books are chock full of capitalist straw men.
* ''[[Mercy Thompson]]'' has coherent and dangerous hate groups spring up every time a new supernatural species [[The Unmasqued World|leaves the masquerade]]. Often overnight. They are always religious, conservative, and popular enough to push a federal bill to declare
* ''[[His Dark Materials]]'' makes out that the Church is a dominating, overbearing, malicious institution that likes to break children away from their [[Our Souls Are Different|daemons]]... [[Utopia Justifies the Means|to save them from themselves.]]
* In the novel [[Assassin Trilogy|''Prayers for the Assassin'']] by Robert Ferrigno, nuke attacks on American cities as well as Mecca result in blue America converting to Islam out of fear and compassion for the poor victimized Muslims, forming the Islamic Republic of America. Meanwhile, all the conservatives in those territories emigrate to the red Christian States of America. It's also a possible subversion as neither of the two are shown to be working particularly well, as they are overrun with armed religious extremist militias, ravaged by global warming and are being invaded by both Mexico and Canada.
* The ''Guardians'' series{{context}} is chock full of Strawmen of every possible political stripe, including some of the viewpoint
* In [[Orson Scott Card]]'s ''[[Orson Scott
* [[Piers Anthony]]'s ''[[Bio of a Space Tyrant]]'' is chock full of these, especially the Nixon stand-in.
* [[Divine Comedy|Dante]] put many of his political/religious enemies in Hell.
* Richard K. Morgan's ''[[
* Galileo's ''Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems'' has a Strawman Geocentrist named Simplicio. Part of what got Galileo in trouble was that he put the Pope's words in Simplicio's mouth. [[Too Dumb to Live|This after said Pope had defended Galileo against his enemies]]
* Senator Sedgewick Sexton from [[Dan Brown]]'s ''[[Deception Point]]'', a Republican senator who starts out as an obvious scumbag and becomes more and more of a [[Complete Monster]] as the book progresses.
* Strawmen can be found in all manner of classical literature. [[Plato]] regularly used strawmen as opponents to [[Socrates]] in his Socratic Dialogues, making this trope [[Older Than Feudalism]].
* ''The [[Illuminatus]]! Trilogy'' has strawmen left right and center. In the end, the authors have an Anarcho-Individualist lean, and its representatives are portrayed as completely insane... in a good way. Various strawmen include [[Fun with Acronyms|Knights of Christianity United in Faith]] and Simon Moon's parents (militant anarcho-syndicalist dad and anarcho-pacifist mom, which leads to embarrassing situations such as Simon telling his third grade teacher that the US isn't a democracy).
* Mike Carey's short story
* One would have to dig deep to find a [[John Ringo]] work that ''doesn't'' have one of these, usually of the liberal variety. Ringo has himself acknowledged that he has problems with writing liberals, in a panel on politics in [[Science Fiction]] at the 2010 Dragon*Con.
* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s books all have strawmen since his presented political philosophies are black-and-white. They also jump between various extremes on the political spectrum, depending on the year they're written.
** In ''[[Farmer in the Sky
** In ''[[Starship Troopers]],'' Heinlein jumps to the opposite end of the spectrum, advocating disenfranchisement of all non-veterans, but also corporal punishment for convicted criminals, as well as ''capital'' punishment for insane persons who commit homicide. This is all justified with various arguments comparing people to dogs.
** In
** With one exception — ''Starship Troopers'', the only book Heinlein admitted to writing because he actually wanted to soapbox on a topic — Heinlein's opinion was that you should never be able to narrow down an author's real-world political views just by reading his fiction, and would deliberately write some books from different POVs than his own just to confuse the issue.
* [[Kurt Vonnegut]] was also quite the [[Strawman Political]] writer - using absurdly simplistic extremes which make a strawman look like [[Iron Man]]: in ''Welcome to the Monkey House'', he attacks population-control with a society that forces people to take drugs that kill their sex-drive. Meanwhile in ''[[Harrison Bergeron]]'' he attacks egalitarianism by featuring a society where everyone is forced to handicap themselves so that everyone will be ''truly'' "equal," with strong people being forced to carry weights, smart people being forced to wear noise-making headphones to disrupt their thinking and marry stupid ones, and good-looking people being forced to marry ugly ones etc.
** Harrison Bergeron [[Poe's Law|is most likely a parody
** The society in ''Welcome to the Monkey House'' is not very strawman, when you realize that there really are many people who do believe that abstinence is the only "moral" form of birth control. The Catholic Church, with 1.2 billion members, just happens to believe this, among other religions. The story also has suicide parlors with "hostesses" who dress like dominatrices. It's really a wacky, off the wall story that pushes all kinds of buttons.
* [[Iain M. Banks]]'s
** The character Joiler Veppers in ''Surface Detail'' seemed to represent various people online who criticise the Culture as weak, spineless, etc. and claim that it should have already collapsed for not following their own paradigm.
* Cergorn, the senior Loremaster of the [[Shadowleague]], is against any expansion of knowledge to lesser peoples, as he thinks it would be dangerous for them. More dangerous than letting them all die of plague, it appears.
* 19th century Russian novelists, particularly
* [[Jerry Pournelle]]'s books are full of straw environmentalists who hate all science and technology. His collaborations with [[Larry Niven]] are especially straw-heavy: In ''[[Fallen Angels]]'' they impose a fascist-disguised-as-liberal dictatorship in the U.S. which [[Dystopian Edict|outlaws science fiction]] (after singlehandedly causing the next Ice Age); in ''[[Oath of Fealty]]'' they are a Weather Underground-style terrorist group; and after the comet impact in ''[[
* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' book ''Night of the Humans'' is essentially [[Author Filibuster|one long rant about how awful and evil religion is]]. The Doctor responds to a crash-landed alien race on a massive pile of space-junk that is threatening a nearby planet. The chosen
* The ''[[Wing Commander (novel)|Wing Commander]]'' novels written solely by William Forstchen contain these in spades, particularly of the liberal variety.
* Admiral McAteer in the ''[[Star Trek: Stargazer]]'' novels is a staunch
* Some [[Stephen King]] novels feature [[Anvilicious]] Straw Conservatives, such as in ''[[Carrie]]''. ''[[IT]]'' also mentions some [[The Fundamentalist|Straw Preachers]] , and the act of hatred that awakens It is the murder of a gay man by some violent Straw Homophobes.
* ''[[In Death]]'': Some characters are certainly this, with Commander Douglas Skinner from ''Interlude In Death'' standing out in particular. "Instead, he'd put in his fifty and then used that as a springboard in a run for Congress. And had fallen hard on his face. A half
** This is hardly the biggest strawman character in the series... that honor goes to a conservative senator in the first book, who's a literal slobbering pedophile rapist (incestuous, at that). In general the series treats conservatives as being, nearly to a man (and they're all men), as misogynist assholes, while liberals (especially liberal politicians) are portrayed as being respectable if not
* ''[[Glee]]'':▼
▲== Live Action TV ==
▲* [[Glee]]:
** Sue Sylvester "Not everyone is gonna have the walnuts to take a pro-littering stance. But [[Insane Troll Logic|I will not rest until every inch of our fair state is covered in garbage]]."
** And now{{when}} Sue is running for Congress on a platform that consists entirely of a desire to eliminate all arts programs from schools, just [[For the Evulz]].
** Both the celibacy club and Quinn's parents also count. [[Anvilicious|Obnoxiously so]].
* ''[[All in The Family]]'' had the character Archie Bunker, who was created by producer Norman Lear to be a Neanderthalesque caricature of working-class conservatives. [[Misaimed Fandom|It backfired.]] Bunker was based on Alf Garnett of ''[[Till Death Us Do Part]]'' and its sequels. Creator Johnny Speight claimed the character was based directly on his own father's POV.
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* ''[[24]]'' has featured both types in its run. Two examples include a lawyer for "[[Brand X|Amnesty Global]]" in season 4 who exempts an arrested suspect from interrogation (having been paid by a terrorist leader to do so, although it's implied the lawyer doesn't know this), and deputy chief of staff Tom Lennox in season 6, who detains thousands of innocent Muslim Americans without presidential authorization and openly talks of "suspending liberties" to safeguard the country. (In later episodes, however, Lennox becomes more of a [[Magnificent Bastard]] than an [[Idiot of the Week]].) In quadruple irony the show is always ultimately geared towards the President's liberal and Protagonist's conservative values turning out to be correct. Detaining citizens of a radical religion HAS to be wrong, torturing terrorists HAS to be right. A restrained response to a downtown nuke HAS to be the right thing, despite the proven response to the much lower death toll of real life 9/11 being two wars and bloody hell in response to an errant nuke being the more likely consequence than a rogue maverick detaining citizens.
* Averted in ''[[Family Ties]]''. The producers had every chance to knock down the views of either the liberal parents or the conservative Alex, but instead, both ideologies were given positive looks. The liberals were made to look noble for their grassroots ideals, and the conservative was shown to be a hard worker. The show was reportedly one of President Reagan's favorites.
** ''[[Family Ties]]'' creator David Goldberg originally intended for the Republican character Alex Keaton to be a bad guy, but Michael J. Fox was just so likable that Alex became the favorite character of many viewers. This motivated the show's writers abandon their plans to make Alex the show's [[Jerkass]].
* ''[[Hearts Afire]]'' featured a borderline-retarded Republican senator and frequently featured stereotypical "conservative VS liberal" arguments, in which the conservative would present a hollow argument so that he could be intellectually trounced by the liberal character.
* The entire premise of the 2005 CBC series ''[[Jimmy MacDonald's Canada]]'' was a Strawman Conservative current affairs show host trying to cope with the 1960s, until he went [[Ax Crazy]] in the last episode and crashed a plane into Northern Ontario. Since everything that bothered Jimmy happened several decades ago, no one feels offended by his over-the-top right wing leanings, as (most) modern conservatives have no objection to zambonis or Italian food.
* CBC comedy ''[[Little Mosque on the Prairie]]'' includes Fred Tupper, an offensive radio host who doesn't trust Muslims, as well as Baber, who believes that winegums, liquorice, and rye bread are part of a plot to trick Muslims into drinking alcohol. In one episode, Baber was able to patch up his religious differences with an ignorant redneck because they both felt equally strongly about same-sex marriage, or, as Baber called it, "The Abomination." It gets even more subversive when you consider that the imam, who would never conduct such a marriage, encourages the Anglican minister to.
* The ''[[West Wing]]'' doesn't like the religious right. The pilot opens with the religious right leaders saying rude things about jews and mixing up the ten commandments. The president then [[Critical Research Failure|mixes up the ten commandments again as he corrects them]] and tells them they are bigots for not condemning a religious group that made a death threat against his granddaughter, and kicks them out. Many other episodes cast Republicans or right wing people as the villains, with views that are similarly stupid and one dimensional.
** It later introduces some republicans who are good people for example, the sixth-and-seventh season Republican Presidential candidate, depicted as a genuinely honorable and decent man like his opponent. That being said, this Republican is on the more liberal wing of the party, and is a pro-choice secularist who appears to be a hidden agnostic (or perhaps even atheist, although this is never confirmed), viewpoints that would be unlikely to secure him his party's nomination in [[Real Life]]. Indeed, many of the sympathetic Republican characters appeared to be on the more liberal wing of the party.
**
* The ''[[CSI]]'' series (especially Miami) are a breeding ground for these characters.
* On ''[[
** He did tell the aide to the McCarthy stand-in that he was so conservative he made McCarthy look like a New Dealer. Which only makes Winchester's strong conservatism an [[Informed Attribute]].
** It seems like much of his conservatism was based on his fiscal policies, which would only come up a limited amount in a war zone.
** Winchester changed with the [[Character Development]] episodes, becoming far more liberal, supposedly "becoming wise" via the harsh realities of war compared to his earlier sheltered
** Frank Burns became so over-the-top that his strawman behavior was justified by the [[Rule of Funny]]. Towards the end of his run on the show, it had gone so far that Frank was almost a parody of a strawman conservative.
* Parodied/lampshaded in the first episode of ''[[That's My Bush!]]'':
{{quote|
'''[[Straw Feminist]]''': Yeah!
'''[[George W. Bush]]''': And you must always remember that ''he'' believes what he does because of a strong moral imperative. }}
* Parodied on ''[[The Young Ones]]'' with the character of Rick; so over the top, it actually seems to be making fun of conservatives who see liberals this way.
** [[Alternative Character Interpretation|While he can be justifiably read that way]], he's [[Word of God|ultimately]] mocking people who are anarchists or socalists only because it's fashionable and are at heart as reactionary as any of the Old Guard. Hence, Rick's instant flip flop on the morality of the police when ''he's'' in trouble.
* Averted in the episode "The Salon" of ''[[The Drew Carey Show]]''. The issue of Internet censorship is brought up during a debating salon started by Drew and friends to impress Drew's boss Mrs. Louder, who is a devout conservative. Mrs. Louder appears to be a Strawman Political, as she responds in the affirmative, claiming that "any good conservative" would be in favour of Net censorship, and fires Drew's friend and fellow employee Kate over her disagreement. However, conservatives as a whole are not painted with this brush as Kate herself claims that she knows many conservatives who do not think that way, and later in the episode [[As Himself|Rush Limbaugh]] (whom Mrs. Louder is a huge fan of) makes a guest appearance, reveals that he actually agreed with Kate on this issue - and convinces Mrs. Louder to rehire her.
* ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'' has Lindsay, a [[Spoiled Brat]] who affects a fake [[Granola Girl]] persona and a (very shallow) interest in trendy left-leaning causes.
* ''[[The Colbert Report]]'' has a straw conservative anchorman. He makes snap decisions with his "gut" rather than his brain, preferring to believe what feels right rather than what dry facts tell him. In early episodes, he had a straw liberal foil played by David Cross who was so obsessed with not offending anyone that he could barely function at all.
* Ron Swanson of ''[[Parks and Recreation]]'' borders on being a Strawman Libertarian with comically exaggerated Libertarian views ("My idea of a perfect government is one guy who sits in a small room at a desk and the only thing he's allowed to decide is who to nuke. The man is chosen based on some kind of IQ test and maybe also a physical tournament like a decathlon. And women are brought to him, maybe... when he desires them.") However, he's generally a sympathetic character and he's on friendly terms with Leslie in spite of their differing political views. Leslie, by the way, is almost certainly a Democrat (though this is never mentioned) and she's usually portrayed as well-meaning but naive.
* For the majority of the show ''[[Freaks and Geeks]]'' the character of Sam has a crush on a pretty, popular cheerleader named Cindy Sanders. When the two of them finally start dating, we find out that Cindy is a Republican. And her character suddenly changes into a person who is rude, close-minded, egotistical, and shallow.
* ''[[Law and Order]]'' made a point to fulfill this whenever it delved into a topic remotely political. If you didn't catch how the defendant was a straw man during the episode, the ADA would be happy to explain it all in the closing arguments.
* The British No 2 AV campaign used Alan B'Stard as an example of the kind of arsehole who would ''inevitably'' saturate the UK's political life if AV was introduced. Unfortunately, most of his dickery could easily be attributed to the politicans of the status quo.
* Britta Perry from ''[[Community]]'' is a Straw Libertarian with touches of [[Straw Feminist]], most of the time coming out as a huge hypocrite. She's generally a sympathetic, yet annoying character.
{{quote|
* And now ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' has Dick Roman, who somehow manages to [[Anvilicious|heavy-handedly]] embody ''several'' straw stereotypes of both conservatives and libertarians at once.
* On ''[[Smallville]]'', the show brought in Cat Grant in
** Granted, Cat wasn't nearly as bad as Gordon Godfrey, who starts out as a right wing talk radio host who first gets possessed by Darkseid and then later ''willingly'' joins Darkseid's evil minion team. Cat Grant, meanwhile, mostly was just there to annoyingly lecture the cool liberal heroes in the most high-pitched voice possible.
*** The thing that makes the appearance of this entire roster of Straw Conservative characters even more annoying, aside from their [[Anvilicious]]-ness, is the fact that for
*** In Godfrey's defense, he's an adaptation of Glorious Godfrey, an evil New God whose hat was poisoning the media against superheroes for Darkseid. If you write him as anything ''other'' than a
* Gus of ''[[Psych]]'' sometimes plays a Straw Liberal, for laughs. In "Let's Get Hairy" he goes on rants against taxidermy (after being seen nuzzling a koala for charity), briefly forgetting that they're chasing someone who's committed a double murder.
* Subverted with Mike Baxter in ''[[Last Man Standing (U.S. TV series)|Last Man Standing]]'', in that while he's opinionated and set in his conservative ways, he's generally well-educated on the issues, unlike the ignorant Kristin and Ryan (who are liberal characters). Additionally, he's shown to be fairly liberal on social issues like gay rights and is against quite a few of the Republican Party's policies such as the Patriot Act. He often plays up the hardcore conservative for fun and annoying others, but he doesn't overtly attack others for having contrary beliefs and is willing to listen to liberal ideas.
* [http://conservapedia.com Conservapedia]: "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia". All articles on Democratic/Liberal/Evolutionary topics are built of straw. Their article on President Obama is a stewed mixture of straw, insults and long
▲== New Media ==
* [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page RationalWiki] is a direct reaction against Conservapedia that takes constant potshots at conservatives, fundamentalists, Conservapedia, and ''especially'' its founder, Andrew Schlafly. Unlike Conservapedia, though, they make no claims to objectivity... or attempts at it. It's basically /r/atheism in wiki form.▼
▲* [http://conservapedia.com Conservapedia]: "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia". All articles on Democratic/Liberal/Evolutionary topics are built of straw. Their article on President Obama is a stewed mixture of straw, insults and long discredited smears.
* The [[YouTube]]
▲* [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page RationalWiki] is a direct reaction against Conservapedia that takes constant potshots at conservatives, fundamentalists, Conservapedia, and ''especially'' its founder, Andrew Schlafly. Unlike Conservapedia, though, they make no claims to objectivity.
▲* The [[YouTube]] Video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaGgpGLxLQw Beware the Believers] plays the straw evolutionist for laughs.
* [[Poe's Law]] describes the difficulties inherent in separating applications of [[Strawman Political]] and parodies of the same.
* ''[http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c0cf508ff8/prop-8-the-musical-starring-jack-black-john-c-reilly-and-many-more-from-fod-team-jack-black-craig-robinson-john-c-reilly-and-rashida-jones Proposition 8: The Musical]''. You tell a group of Straw Conservatives when you see them.
* The Year Zero ARG, which promotes the [[Nine Inch Nails]] album of the same name, depicts the United States after 15 additional years of rule by Strawman Republicans and gets absolutely ridiculous. It's stated they're forbidding women to work, have genocidal bands of Christians killing non
*
* [http://www.landoverbaptist.org/ The Landover Baptist Church], which, along with Christwire.org, [[Poe's Law|has been mistaken for an actual Christian website]].
** Ms. Betty Bowers, a fictional member of said fictional church, has her own [http://www.bettybowers.com/ website] and [[YouTube]] [http://www.youtube.com/user/MrsBettyBowers channel]. She spends a good deal of her videos [[Rich Bitch|extolling her own opulent lifestyle]] and tends to feature [[It's All About Me|her own image]] [[Straw Hypocrite|more than Jesus's]].
* A [[Let's Play]] of
* The site ''[http://www.derailingfordummies.com Derailing For Dummies]'' is dedicated to providing a snappy generic response to counter a variety of tangential, emotion-based arguments. But the strawman? It's in the very intention of the site. By using this site, you ''invoke the strawman'' that paints your opponent as a [[Insane Troll Logic|common troll]] who argues with only the over-the-top prescribed fallacies featured. And unless you are responding to a post that uses those arguments exclusively and word-for-word, you've just [[Derailing|obstructed any valid arguments from being addressed]]. If the irony isn't quite potent enough, just consider when it's used in advance to address [[I Know You Know I Know|"arguments I hear all the time"]].
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==▼
▲== Newspaper Comics ==
* Just say that ''any'' political cartoonist has recurred to this, in fact, their profession demands it.
* Any liberal, Democrat, liberal Democrat, or member of a minority group that appears in Bruce Tinsley's ''[[Mallard Fillmore]]''.
* ''[[Doonesbury]]'' often features straw conservatives, as have ''[[Bloom County]]'' and its
* ''[[Candorville]]'' features strawmen of both liberal and conservative varieties, and then lampshades them all.
* ''[[Get Fuzzy]]'' uses Bucky Katt for a conservative-as-idiot strawman, with Satchel Pooch as his [[Vitriolic Best Buds]] counterpart on the left. However, it is hinted that he acts conservative in order to irritate Satchel and Rob, both Liberals.
* Rat in ''[[Pearls Before Swine]]'' is also used as a conservative strawman. Given that ''Pearls'' creator Stephan Pastis and ''Fuzzy's'' Darby Conley are close friends, it's hard to guess who's copying who. In the notes to the treasury collections, artist Stephan Pastis indicates that Rat is simply himself with less self-restraint. Whether that still qualifies Rat for Strawman status is debatable.
* Royboy in ''Soup to Nutz'' is also used as a conservative strawman. This usually doesn't work too well, because he's often just used to spout whatever the writer believes are right-wing talking points, such as anti-vaccine propaganda, while the other characters laugh at him. The character rarely actually acts like the 8-year-old boy he is. His younger sister is often used as a left-wing straw man, making anti-war, pro-vegetarian comments. The strip is rather Anvilicious in its politics.
* Winslow the coyote pup from ''[[Prickly City]]''. In one early story, he suggested that he and his human companion, Carmen, get married, so that the author could equate gay marriage with bestiality.
* Aaron McGruder's ''[[The Boondocks]]'' had plenty of these. (The strip's protagonist, Huey Freeman, could arguably be deemed a Strawman Black Radical, except that we're clearly meant to sympathize with him.)
* Going further back, ''[[Little Orphan Annie]]'' and ''[[Li'l
* Use of the trope in newspaper editorial cartooning is satirized by ''[http://www.theonion.com/ The Onion
* The reason we have newspaper comic strips is that during the 19th century editors discovered funny, topical, easy
* This was played for laughs in a week of ''[[Peanuts]]'' strips where Linus claims he wanted to be "a fanatic". He didn't know what he wanted to be fanatical ''about'', though, saying "I'll just be a wishy-washy fanatic."
== [[Theatre]] ==▼
▲== Theatre ==
* Louis Ironson of ''[[Angels in America]]'' reads very much like a [[Deconstruction]] of the Strawman Liberal stereotype.
* Mr Birling from ''[[An Inspector Calls]]'' is a prime example of a British conservative straw man. J.B. Priestly gives the audience no doubt that he is wrong about everything, including his political and social views.
* The rock musical version of ''[[Two Gentlemen of Verona]]'' had the Duke of Milan's entrance song making him a Strawman Conservative Militarist.
{{quote|
== [[Video Games]] ==
* The Weasel News Network of ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'' is a direct [[Take That]] against the [[Fox News]] Network. (Get the pun?). Everything about the network is portrayed as [[Crossing the Line Twice]]. For that matter, 90% of the satirical media in ''GTA IV'' is [[Straw Conservative]] (at the cost of laughs). ''GTA: [[Vice City]]'' had a talk show where right and left-wing strawmen tried to out-straw each other.
* The radio messages in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]: Bloodlines''. They add nothing to the story, and serve ''only'' to portray a fictional right-wing politician as a sleazeball. To be fair, the radio is purely there for comedy and everyone who appears on the radio is presented as a complete idiot. Most of ''Bloodlines'' doesn't really look favorably on anyone, except the liberal Nines, the conservative Bertram, and the independents Beckett and Jack. Or you could flip the first two, as Nines views government as needing to be small and Bertram as large.
* In a very early example, [[Infocom]]'s ''[[A Mind Forever Voyaging]]'' was intended as a critique of the Reagan era of conservative capitalism. The part where they didn't remotely use any of Reagan's actual policies, save for tax cuts, didn't help it any. It also didn't help that Senator Ryder, the [[Big Bad]], was written as so psychotically evil that when the aforementioned psychohistorical forecasting shows that the end result of his plan will be that within 20 years the country will be bankrupt, within 40 years his hoped-for government will be overthrown by an apocalyptic religious cult and he will be either a powerless serf or dead, and that within 50 years ''human civilization will cease to exist'', he isn't deterred a
* The freeware game by [[Dwarf Fortress|Tarn Adams]], ''[[Liberal Crime Squad]]'' is entirely built around this. America is slowly becoming incredibly conservative, and you play as the titular group of criminals, who are willing to murder and sabotage society to get everyone to become liberal. Your main enemies are the Conservative Crime Squad, who are just as crazy as the Liberal Crime Squad.
* Tom Clancy's ''[[Rainbow Six]]'' had strawman environmentalists, who wanted to save the Earth from humanity by killing off 99% of it.<ref>aka Poison Ivy or Kyoto Protocol.</ref>
* ''[[Dragon Age 2]]'' has
* The radio transmissions in ''[[The Conduit]]'' are full of these, with right-wing Timothy Browning, left-wing Jared X. Fulton, and [[Granola Girl]] Autumn Wanderer, all of whom use the game's [[Alien Invasion]] as a springboard for their straw views.
{{quote|
* ''[[Saints Row]] 2'' features radio ads for an in-game gun shop called "Friendly Fire" that use extremely strawmanned arguments for protecting the second amendment. ("If you support waiting periods, you hate freedom!") Since you're playing a sociopathic [[Villain Protagonist]] who runs around shooting helpless civilians on a whim, the [[Straw Man Has a Point]] about just how unsafe you are without something to shoot back with.
** This is a world where the most popular game show on TV murders contestants, and has them murder each other, to a degree that would make Roman gladiatorial promoters go 'perhaps that's a bit too far'... while the game show host has the head of a cartoon cat grafted onto a human body. It is very unlikely that anything the Saints Row franchise says about violence or weapons was ever intended to be taken seriously.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Every political
* [http://www.shmorky.com/d/20060619.html This strip] beautifully summarizes ''so many'' political
▲* Every political webcomic features an abundance of nameless straw men political opposing the author's political alignment. Occasionally, they will try to add in straw men of their own demographic in an attempt to show that they're not biased, but these straw men are either too subtle and argue about very minor points, or are ridiculously exaggerated in a way that makes them not even remotely believable.
▲* [http://www.shmorky.com/d/20060619.html This strip] beautifully summarizes ''so many'' political webcomics.
* Cecania and Fairbanks in ''[[Sore Thumbs]]'' are hilariously exaggerated strawmen of liberals and conservatives respectively. Each of them seems to have taken their ideology to a ridiculous extreme, and then taken the ridiculous extreme to a ridiculous extreme, leading to such things as Fairbanks having once killed two people because "they looked like terrorists" (luckily for him, ''they were'') and Cecania having been known to demonstrate outside abortion clinics because they won't offer drive-through service. Cecania is still presented as being a lot more sympathetic, though.
* Chris Muir's ''[http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/ Day by Day]'' has characters on both ends of the political spectrum, but the conservative/libertarian characters (including product designer and Special Ops sniper Zed, black Republican Damon, and [[Blonde Republican Sex Kitten|Redheaded Republican Sex Kitten]] Sam) are portrayed as both principled and cool, while liberal Jan is often portrayed as being a bit histrionic and over the top; however, the comic itself points out that the characters respect her because she actually ''believes what she's saying'' and says it because she's honestly trying to help others. This is pointed out in one comic where it's said Jan is a "dove", and that she's sincere about it (as opposed to many who claim the title and simply "sit around and shit all over everything"). There's even an arc chastising Damon for going too far with his arguing against her, where he acknowledges he needs to be more respectful of her ideals. Since having her go through an obligatory [[Opposites Attract]] romance with Damon, Jan has increasingly shifted to being a [[Fox News Liberal]], with her position of Straw Liberal taken over by Sam's sister [[Cousin Oliver|Skye]], who has nearly no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
* In ''[[Questionable Content]]'', being a professional Strawman is Angus's [http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1384 occupation]. This means that he gets paid to appear on debates with ludicrous arguments and lose... must be awesome. When he goes up against ''another'' professional Strawman, they end up actually competing as to who can give a worse argument.
* ''[[Ctrl+Alt+Del]]'' had religious leaders from all over the world to temporarily put aside their differences to beat up upon Ethan's new Gamer Religion, and Lucas manages to dumbfound them with some minor piece of wisdom that they are utterly slackjawed to answer.
* ''[[Hackles]]'' has Marcus, their marketing mouse. He is used to support anything uncool, such as some conservatism (although they don't really get into politics, everyone is "moderate"), Windows users, poor web design, poor software design and marketing. He would be a [[Butt Monkey]] if he didn't deserve what happens to him (he is a mouse, and some of the characters are mice...including his nurse/date).
* ''[[Penny Arcade]]'' features a literal strawman [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/2/19/ here.]
* Occasionally used in ''[[Dork Tower]]'' as a [[Take That]] against self-proclaimed [[Moral Guardians]] and other bureaucrats.
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* In ''[[The Adventures of Gyno Star]]'' the Feminist superhero, Gyno-Star, faces an array of straw foes, most notably a straw Libertarian super-villain knows as [http://www.gynostar.com/archives/426 The Glibertarian], created in a lab by an insurance company in order to spread pro-corporate ideology.
== [[Western Animation]] ==▼
* ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'': [[General Ripper|General Eiling]] is shown to have sinister straw-conservative leanings, he's eager to drop [[Nuke'Em|nuclear bombs]] on the Justice League, blames the "bleeding hearts in Congress" for not getting his way and eventually turns himself into a supervillain in order to "defend" America from heroes. The series also features a cowardly straw-[[
▲== Western Animation ==
▲* ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'': [[General Ripper|General Eiling]] is shown to have sinister straw-conservative leanings, he's eager to drop [[Nuke'Em|nuclear bombs]] on the Justice League, blames the "bleeding hearts in Congress" for not getting his way and eventually turns himself into a supervillain in order to "defend" America from heroes. The series also features a cowardly straw-[[Bill O Reilly|Bill O'Reilly]] type character.
** However, like the comic books, they avoid hinting which political side Lex Luthor leans toward in his policies when he runs for president. A quick line of dialogue revealed he was running as an independent.
{{quote|
* ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' features a villain not taken from the comic pages, Lock-Up, who is a straw-conservative and vigilante who despises the "liberal media" and enjoys throwing everyone he doesn't like into prison. Lock-Up may have been an attempt to make Batman seem more liberal by comparison, since Batman, a rich private citizen who succeeds where the corrupt public system fails, has been accused of being a conservative-friendly character.
* The villain "Looten Plunder" on ''[[Captain Planet and the Planeteers]]'', a completely amoral capitalist who dreams of "stripping entire continents" for monetary gain, was a strawman conservative. (At least [[Card-Carrying Villain|he had a reason, though.]])
* ''[[South Park]]'' sometimes does this with its social and political-themed episodes. Not when both sides are made to look like asses (how the show normally deals with these issues), but when one side is unambiguously set up as wrong based on faulty pretenses, for the sake of dropping the episode's moral. Like the episodes about hate crimes and alcoholism.
** Though, as implied, [[South Park]] has no qualms with building a strawman of ''both'' sides in the same episode. This is exemplified in an in-universe TV debate (which might have been intended mostly to satirize how news channels tend to do this) between "Pissed-Off White-Trash Redneck Conservative" and "Aging Hippie Liberal Douche". As their ''actual names''. [[It Makes Sense in Context|They were discussing immigrants from the future.]]
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* ''[[King of the Hill]]'' skews conservative/libertarian (as per its creator Mike Judge), but in general it's pretty good about being equal opportunity. One of the first episodes has a Strawman Liberal social worker who's convinced that Hank is physically abusing Bobby, but ultimately gets [[Reassigned to Antarctica]] by his boss for not actually investigating Hank and operating solely off of gut instinct. (This character, or an [[Identical Stranger]], returns in a later episode where he enables people to claim disability for ludicrous reasons.) On the other hand, another early episode has a Strawman Conservative woman who claims all forms of Halloween celebration are Satanic and gets Arlen to "cancel" the holiday; Hank ends up putting on an old costume and leading a protest against her, with all the adults of the neighborhood agreeing with him.
** In earlier episodes Dale could be seen as a Strawman Conservative with his extreme distrust of the government; however, once [[Flanderization]] kicks in he's just treated as a lone nutcase who thinks "The Conspiracy" is behind everything bad in America.
** ''[[The Goode Family]]'', in much the same vein as ''[[King of the Hill]]''.
* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' uses these
** They did this to the Democrats in a more recent episode:
{{quote|
** ''
*** However, the show often takes great pains to avoid taking any real shots at Democrats these days. Quimby is a perfect example... he's now a third-party candidate (of which he is the only member).
** In one of the earlier episodes, Bart's elephant Stampy runs through a Republican convention and gets cheered. A sign at the convention says "We want what's worst for everybody!" and "We're just plain evil!", and then when he runs through the Democrat convention, one has a sign that says "We hate ourselves!" and "We can't govern!"
** Especially notable for the [[Ayn Rand|Rand]] daycare center, where they deny the use of pacifiers and bottles:
{{quote|
'''Marge:''' "Ba-ba"?
'''Ms. Sinclair:''' It's saying "I am a leech"! Our aim here is to develop the bottle ''within''. }}
** Any episode where [[
** Professor August from "That 90s Show" is a particularly heavy-handed Strawman Liberal. He managed to convince Marge that Homer's honest love and devotion were just his attempts to make her [[Stay in the Kitchen]], resulting in Marge dumping Homer for the Professor. In the end, he turns out to be just as bad, and Marge realizes her mistake and gets back with Homer.
* ''[[Harvey Birdman]]: Attorney at Law'' featured some Animal Liberation Nut Strawmen in "Free Magilla"; they freed all the animals from Mr. Peeble's pet store, even though this seemed to cause the creatures more anxiety than relief. When Magilla Gorilla later reunites with Mr. Peebles, he asks him to "Take me home - home to my nice, safe cage", the group who stole him splashes red paint on him and shouts "Animal freedom now!"
* ''[[Futurama]]'' takes a crack at the Strawmen who surround the whole,
** The argument in the episode about dating robots was ''itself'' a strawman. It was presented as an [[Very Special Episode|after school special]] designed by the [[Moral Guardians]] to [[Scare'Em Straight]] and was about as objective and truthful as a [[Jack Chick]] tract. The Earth was never destroyed by an alien species. It was, however, apparently destroyed twice, by Bender, for unrelated reasons. And if all life on Earth had been wiped out, how could people still be alive today?
** The argument in the "Robot Marriage" episode was not "cheap thrills of programmed love", and instead about people (and robots) who honestly (with the exception of Bender, obviously) love each other being able to socially express their love. Or did I make up the parts where Amy and Bender had sex despite not being married?
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* ''[[Family Guy]]'' uses this trope to death; any time a character with conservative leanings appears, you can expect them to be a caricature in line of the most heavy-handed political cartoons; one specific example is Peter's father Francis, a typical Strawman Conservative religious zealot. Peter can be seen as a Strawman American thanks to his [[Flanderization]] from [[Bumbling Dad]] into self-absorbed [[Jerkass]]. Ironically, Brian (who is often thought of as [[Seth MacFarlane]]'s [[Author Avatar]], gets viewed as a Strawman Liberal by some fans due to his vehement hatred of anything conservative (among other less than pleasant traits).
** In one episode, when Brian learns that [[Rush Limbaugh]] is in town for a book signing, he launches into a tirade about how the man is a [[Complete Monster]] and then marches down to the bookstore to chew him out. After Rush saves Brian from some muggers, he ends up going Republican...only to become exactly the same kind of Strawman that every other conservative is on this show, spouting off the most extreme caricatures of Republican ideology (free guns for everyone, execute every single person in jail, etc). The [[Snap Back]] ensures that he's back to being liberal by the end of the episode.
*** In defense of ''Family Guy'' they even spell out that, regardless of political affiliation, there will always be a [[Confirmation Bias|unbelievably biased]] [[Strawman Political]] who acts like a self
{{reflist}}
[[Category:The War On Straw]]
[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
▲[[Category:Straw Character]]
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