Fictional Political Party: Difference between revisions

Then on the flip side of the coin, the political parties in a work may be used to show that [[Democracy Is Bad|the democratic system in this society is incredibly flawed or a huge joke]]. Similarly, a fake party may be a [[Fictional Counterpart|stand-in]] to critique a [[Real Life]] political agenda or party, at which point such a group is likely to be used as a [[Strawman Political]] for an [[Author Tract]]. In other cases, the party itself may be based on ideas or concepts that are impossible (or pointless) to politicize in the democratic process, such as disorganized chaos or apathy, for [[Rule of Funny|the sake of comedy]].

 

 

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

 

== Comics ==

* 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 [[Everything's Better with 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.

** In the short spin-off ''Robo-Hunter'', the robots on the planet one story takes place on have built an entire government full of political parties. Since the robots are actually controlled by a genius dictator robot, the government robots are utterly insane and spend most of their time arguing and trying to push pointless agendas.

** A common criticism of 'New Labour' by some was how on certain issues they had become more right wing than the Tories, which also hindered Tory attempts to regroup as their traditional ground had been usurped, which might explain where Moore got the idea.

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

 

 

* 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 "Clean US Party" ([[Fun with Acronyms|CUSP]]), led by crooner Johnny Gentle in [[David Foster Wallace]]'s [[Doorstopper]] ''[[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.

* [[Harry Turtledove]]'s ''[[Timeline-191]]'' series has the Freedom Party, [[A Nazi by 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 as 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]]'', 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.

 

== Live Action TV ==

[[Category:Index of Exact Trope Titles]]

[[Category:Politics Tropes]]