Political Stereotype

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/wiki/Political Stereotypework

This page is about any kind of way that media tries to make the "other side" look bad. There are lots of variations on stereotypes. Not all stereotypes are bad, and not all of them are entirely inaccurate (or defamatory). But they can offend people.

If a negative stereotype was created just to make the hero look good, or his views seem right, then it is a Strawman Political.

See also Blonde Republican Sex Kitten and Granola Girl. If you are from another country, please feel free to put in your stereotypes.

Stereotypes by Country

Australia

• Labor Party: There are two relevant stereotypes.
  • Socially conservative proletarian union-member that only wants more welfare handouts and hasn't realized that Marxism is wrong. Will go on strike at the slightest provocation. Is a closet racist. This stereotype is typically directed towards the ALP's Union base.
  • Politically correct Ivory-tower intellectual that still believes that Language Equals Thought and dreams of being a Platonic Philosopher-King. Latte-sipping Francophiliac Foucault-loving intellectual snob that looks down upon the lowly workers yet uses them for political gain. Probably gay or bisexual, likes visiting art galleries and secretly is ashamed of Australia's alleged lack of culture. This stereotype is typically directed towards the ALP's supporters in the academic left, as well as wealthier persons that vote for the ALP.
• The Coalition: There are two relevant stereotypes.
  • Inner-City Big Business Corrupt Corporate Executive worker-exploiting heartless capitalists. May or may not be religious or racist, but will exploit people's religious or racial sentiments in order to win elections. This stereotype is typically directed towards the Liberal Party (one of the members of the Coalition).
  • Rural redneck religious racist protectionist pork-barrel-loving subsidy sluts. Broadly similar to the rural religious right of the American Republicans, but with less emphasis on religion and more emphasis on subsidies and protectionism. This stereotype is typically applied to the National Party (the other member of the Coalition).
• The Greens: Drug-addled nature-worshipping anti-industrial anti-capitalist homosexuals that want us all to return to the caves and hold hands around the (communal!) fire and sing "Kumbaya" together.

Canada

• Broadly similar to the United States, although the country's political system is based on Britain's.
• Liberal: Out-of-touch university-educated elitists, likely to be white and Anglo-Saxon despite many supporters being recent immigrants (of which Canada has quite a lot).
• Conservative: Rich, heartless bankers and stockbrokers or religious fanatics who want to ban abortion and gays. Actually likely to be white and Anglo-Saxon (despite having a large Muslim base of supporters). Popular among people who hate immigrants and foreign aid but love Israel.
• New Democratic Party: Anti-war, anti-corporate, pot-smoking hippies who ride bicycles, teach at universities and have mustaches - wait, that's just their leader. (Until he died.) Frequently accused of being pinko socialists, because we all know there is nothing worse on earth than that.
  • Also, Journalist Douglas Bell has described his preconceptions of the NDP campaign office as being "beefy union types interacting uneasily with former Marxists and 60s refugees". Union density is greater in Canada than the US and the NDP has had formal connections to the Canadian Labour Congress since it formed in 1961.
• Bloc Québécois: French Jerks. That's it. Most likely to be the Designated Villain.
• Green Party: Sort of like the NDP, but more prone to delivering Green Aesops. Barely figuring on the political scene, they're best known for being the only party led by a woman.
• If Canada's parties were a Five-Man Band (which is convenient, since there actually are five) they would be as follows: Conservatives - The Big Guy, Liberals - The Smart Guy, NDP - The Heart, Bloc - Token Evil Teammate, Greens - The Chick.

Ireland

• Fianna Fáil: upper middle class businessmen and lawyers with faulty memories when it comes to personal finances and a penchant for corruption. What Fine Gael would be like in power.
• Fine Gael: Inept political opportunists always eager for a bandwagon to jump on. What Fianna Fáil would be like if not in power.
• Labour: The political wing of the trade unions and mouthpiece of the disgruntled working class.
• The Green Party: Wishy-washy environmentalists who sold their soul to Fianna Fáil by going into coalition with them and will soon be disbanded.
• Progressive Democrats: Fianna Fáil splinter group which soon hopped back into bed with them but kept the name. Disbanded due to redundancy and its remaining parliamentary members absorbed into the government.
• Sinn Féin: Patriotic zealots with no idea how to actually govern a country.
• Republican Sinn Féin: The above turned Up to Eleven.
• Independants: Random people loyal only to the interests of their constituents and/or being re-elected by said consitutents, with far too much power to influence the shape of the government.

Russia

• United Russia (ER): The party of Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, and 40% of Russia. A centrist-conservative-left party that supports the Kremlin's plans for centralization and unity, turning Russia from The Federation into The Republic. Supporters are mocked as either nostalgic for the days when the Soviet government ruled everything, plutocrats who are tied up with the Russian Mafia, neo-militarists, or unimaginative people who follow Putin because so many others do.
• Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF): The second-largest party, supported by about 19% of the people. Mostly supported by old people and scientists who miss the security of the Soviet days before the Russian Mafia took over, plus the Josef Stalin fans, but have placed a Nostalgia Filter over the tyrannical aspects of the Soviet Union.
• Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR): The LDPR is the Politically-Incorrect Villain of Russian parties. It is pro-Russian and hates Jews, Americans, Asians, and anything else non-Slavic. Fascist, nationalist, poor. Appropriately enough, led by half-Jewish aggressive demagogue Zhirinovsky. At its most friendly, it is a Sour Supporter of the Kremlin.
• Fair Russia (SR): A social-democratic party that officially acts as the voice for progressive social reform and human rights. In the Duma, it is seen as the Fox News Liberal of parties, not daring to say much against the Kremlin lest it provoke the ire of Vladimir Putin. It has picked up many supporters from...
• Yabloko: A liberal-democratic party that promoted democracy, social reform, and human rights. Its supporters were derided as soft middle-class liberals who are trying to import American liberalism. Was kicked out of the Duma for insufficient returns in elections.
• Right Way: as it is seen in the name, classic right-wing party. Supports capitalism, pro-western politics, human rights and can be viewed somewhat like the British Conservative Party. Has little support because pro-western politics and other became increasingly unpopular in the Russian public.
• National Bolshevik Party (Nazbol): A mad party who want Russia to form a massive Eurasian empire. Hates America and authoritarian governments, such as that of Vladimir Putin. However, its symbol looks like the Nazi flag with a hammer and sickle in place of the swastika. Naturaly, it is banned.
• Russian Communist Workers' Party - Revolutionary Party of Communists (RKRP - RPK): The party of the real, old-fashioned Communists, who consider the KPRF to be too soft and too bourgeois-fascist. Stages demonstrations and claims to be behind the biggest strikes, earning it a reputation as a Glory Hound. This party really does want to bring back the Soviet Union.
• Party For People Freedom" (PARNAS): Everyone who don't want to cooperate with Putin. Party is banned.

Singapore

• The PAP: The ruling party. Has been in power for a longer time than the country has actually existed. Supporters are mocked as extremely conservative, well-off, bureaucratic and stuffy white picket fence traditionalists who would happily give up freedom of speech and expression just as long as the money keeps rolling in.
• The Opposition: Every other political party in the country falls under this, such is the domination of the PAP. Citizens often cannot tell the Worker's Party, the Singapore Democratic Party, the National Solidarity Party etc. apart. Supporters are mocked as young, naive, Internet-addicted starry-eyed idealists who don't have real jobs and complain for the sake of complaining.

Switzerland

• Christian Democratic People's Party (CVP): Wishy-washy, nice Cloudcuckoolanders whom nobody's listening to, anyway. Want to uphold the social market economy to neither offend the big business capitalists who propagate economic freedom nor the wacky socialists in their quest for, well...social justice. Due to the "C" in their party name, they are always stammering about social/family values just in order to sound relevant.
• Social Democratic Party (SP): Damn socialists (see above) and pacifist sissies who hate guns and aim to ruin the country through welfare programs, universal health care and above all, dragging poor Switzerland into the European Union, seeking to destroy her great heritage of independence, neutrality and her strong economy. Oh, and they are drug addicts, of course.
• Free Democratic Party (FDP): Greedy loan sharks who promote big business and a strong, capitalist economy (see above). Libertarian to the core.
• Swiss People's Party (SVP): Retarded, right-wing xenophobes who want to keep Switzerland isolated from the influence of every country which is not so great as her, which would happen to be every nation which does not tend to begin with "switzer" and end with "land". Despite pretending to be on the farmer's side, they suck up to the rich ones by propagating tax cuts for them.

Taiwan

• Kuomintang (Nationalist Party, KMT): The KMT leads the Pan-Blue Coalition in Taiwan, and is the oldest Chinese party, dating back to 1919. It used to be the only party in Taiwan until the 1990s. Its supporters are plutocrats who want to take control of all of China under a "One China" policy, and have sold out to the Communists by promoting rapprochement.
• Democratic Progressive Party (DPP): The DPP is the Bourgeois Bohemian party of new-age progressive democrats who want Taiwan to become its own country, but do not realize doing that would risk war with Red China.

United Kingdom

• Labour: working-class benefits scrounger, illegal immigrant, asylum seeker, or all three. Plus the "champagne socialists" (rich progressives), who are seen as eating tofu and hummus, as well as being knee-jerk Anti-Tory and having an obsessive desire to be identified with the working-class. Will inevitably morph once in office to become ultra-authoritarian. Spend all the money they have and indeed, the money they don't have. If this spending results in increased efficiency (however small), it is obviously a massive success. If it doesn't work, throw more money at it and the problem will sort itself out.
• Conservatives: Better known as Tories, though not (quite) officially. Upper-class public-school toffs who want to take more money from the poor to give to the rich, and have duped the workers. They are either mocked as ultra-traditionalist "Shire Tories" who live in the countryside and are obsessed with the nobility and Victorian values; or otherwise slimy young middle-class libertarians who want to abolish the NHS while everyone's backs are turned.
• Liberal Democrat: Cloudcuckoolander who believes his party will ever get in power, or alternatively Labour-lite. Actually got to (share) power for a few years, precipitating a switch to a Tory-Lite image. Once a party which was seen as 'trendy' to support, 'cos the others were too mainstream or something like that. These days, also stereotyped as somewhat hypocritical for jumping into bed with a party they had previously talked about as if it was their archnemesis.
• Green : The Bog-Standard Green Stereotype. Bunch of bonkers hippy throwbacks, probably want to extend voting rights to fish, want the NHS to give more priority to crystal healing than heart transplants, are inherently suspicious of anything that could conceivably benefit humanity. Very vocal in their support of certain social justice movements in recent years, but whether that's genuine or simply a desire to look relevant is a matter of opinion.
• British National Party: Racist. Although they've recently been forced to allow non-white members to join and many actually have. These non-white members are also racist. For example, a Sikh man who hated Muslims was delighted to find like-minded comrades in the BNP. Their main enemies are of course the awful Muslamic ray guns. Specialize at being losing incumbent councilors and having leadership crises.
• UKIP: A bunch of xenophobic Little Englanders. Obsessed with World War 2 and compare the Third Reich with the EU constantly. Either seen making tired national stereotypes about the French or fervently campaigning against political correctness. Read the Daily Express. Believe the EU had banned bendy bananas and cars with more than three wheels. Have obsessed fantasies about launching their own resistance movement against the evil nasty Europeans. Managed to forget to put down their own name on the ballot at at one London Election.
• Libertarian: Basically Independents (see below) who wanted to join a party and get fewer votes. They like small government and American Libertarian pamphlets, and occasionally forget what country they're in. The party (or parties) is (or are) in a constant state of flux as members argue over who's Libertarian enough to tell the other Libertarians what to do.
• SNP: Bunch of whiny Scots who watched Braveheart and decided that it should be brought into the 21st century. Basically Labour but more mawkishly nationalistic. Leeches money off English people while claiming they don't need it. Keen on centralising power and services, as long as the centre is in Edinburgh - but the rest of Scotland think that's OK because they said they'll have another Independence referendum one day.
• Alba: Broke off from the SNP when the SNP suggested a previous leader wasn't The Ace. Claim to want independence from England but nobody believes them. Or cares.
• Plaid Cymru: Have a stupid name, obsessed with the necromancy of a long-forgotten and incomprehensible language, physically incapable of doing anything constructive in power. Basically think of all the stereotypes of a Welshman and imagine a whole horde of them. Charming, eh?
• Respect: A hodge-podge alliance of aging, unwashed liberals ready to scream "Military-Industrial Complex" if they so much as see a soldier walking to the newsagents, and bearded Muslim Fundamentalists hell-bent on imposing Shariah law in London.
• Sinn Fein: Terrorists who have accidently become politicians. Never show up for work, not that they would get let in if they did.
• DUP : Really, really, really conservative. Thinks gay people are abominations or something like that
• Independents : Principled egalitarians who prefer to stay above the pettiness of party politics. In reality though, they are just too egotistical/ugly to join a real party.

United States

• Democrat / Progressive / Liberal: Tree-hugging, abortion-loving, gun-hating, bleeding-heart ACLU member who hates America, wants a government telescreen sticking out of every wall, enjoys killing fetuses and the elderly, and doesn't understand economics.
• Republican / Conservative:
  • Pre-2016: Free market, religious nut, gun lover, heartless, warmongering, NRA member who hates most of the people in America and doesn't understand economics.
  • Post-2016: Donald Trump's fan club.
• Libertarian: Depends on who is writing the stereotype:
  • According to Conservatives: amoral, drug-addled, seditious and disloyal, sex-and-drug obsessed Hollywood Atheist types who worship Ayn Rand. But they understand economics.
  • According to Liberals: Hyper-capitalist, heartless, Social Darwinist Nietzsche Wannabe crypto-Republicans that want Hobbesian anarchy and everyone to wear tinfoil hats, worship Ayn Rand and doesn't understand economics.
  • According to Ayn Rand: Crazy, anti-intellectual, anarchist hippies who need to come to their senses and outgrow those silly superstitions; and don't worship Ayn Rand correctly.
  • According to themselves: Enlightened intellectuals who want to return this country back to what the founders intended, are superior to everyone else and are right about everything. They will bring prosperity back to America by removing social programs that keep poor people poor, and remove the minimum wage so companies won't feel the need to outsource to sweatshops. They recognize everything that is bad about government, which is everything about government except the courts and police, because shut up, that's why.
• Green: Like Democrat, but kinda goofy, has way more emphasis on hugging trees, and likely to be a drug addict. Passed up economics class altogether to take another elective on Snowy Owl habitats. The Hufflepuff House of American Politics. Their perpetual presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, is seen as a doddering old man who stole Al Gore's victory and gave the presidency to George W. Bush. Now both the left and the right can hate the Greens.
• Constitution- similar to republican, with antisemitism and isolationism . Are often accused of not wanting to actually follow the constitution, are disliked by the right for being against free trade, and the left for pretty much everything else, and doesn't understand economics.
• Tea Party: Not an actual party, but the name for a movement. The extreme right wing of the Republican Party, a Politically-Incorrect Villain with a Hair-Trigger Temper. Supporters are either plutocrats who don't want to pay one cent more on taxes, violent nationalists, archaic fundamentalists, or rubes who have been duped into opposing progressive social reforms that could actually help them. Represented and unofficially led by Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. Stereotyped as having No Indoor Voice. And doesn't understand economics.
• Occupy Wall Street: The left wing version of the Tea Party. Seen as "overeducated" hipsters who don't want to work but want the government to give everything to them, have no respect for authority and laws, rape people in tents, and is completely unorganized with no central cause, as it is made up of progressives, populists, libertarians, anarchists, and everyone in between. They also hate rich people and want to eat them, which is proof that they don't understand economics.

Examples of Political Stereotypes include:

United States

Film

• The Film Actors' Guild (FAG), from the film Team America: World Police, is a parody of strawman liberals, to the point where they ally with Kim Jong-Il (the film's Big Bad) in a misguided attempt to bring peace to the world. The heroes approach the conservative side, although they are clearly a bunch of bungling destructive idiots.
• The movie Shooter had the cartoonishly evil Republican Senator Charles Meachum.
• Forrest Gump depicts the '60s counterculture and the antiwar movement as being naive at best and smug, hypocritical, and violent at worst. Note that it's not a strawman to point out that many radical leftists were violent; at some anti-war meetings, members actually discussed what politicians to try to kill if they supported the war. The film also features the Black Panthers, who openly advocated (and used) violence. That said, Ginny is treated sympathetically in her opposition to the war-it seems to be more showing that diverse opinions existed within the movement, which was true.
• General Ripper from Dr. Strangelove, who launches a nuclear strike on the USSR because he believes water fluoridation to be a Communist plot. Some Truth in Television in that one—that belief was actually held by some members of the far-right John Birch Society.
• Stephen King's The Mist has as an antagonist a crazy old lady, Mrs. Carmody, who rallies the scared people to offer a human sacrifice to appease the deadly mist... apparently as demanded by God in The Bible, citations of actual verses be darned.
  • See also every single Christian character he's ever depicted, ever.

Live-Action TV

• The Colbert Report, as a satirical pundit show, has both. Stephen Colbert's entire purpose for existing is to serve as a strawman conservative. In the early days of the show he was occasionally contrasted with liberal strawman milquetoast Russ Lieber, played by comedian David Cross. More recently, he has begun imagining his liberal opposite from a Mirror Universe, who wears tweed jackets and has a mustache, among other things.
  • Briefly, during the show's coverage of the Vancouver Olympics, he also had a dour effete French Canadian counterpart who hosted the "Colbert Report" (both "t"'s pronounced)
• Cold Case featured an episode where modern-day Christians in an abstinence group are actually perverts and sex maniacs, who stone a girl to death for trying to rat them out.
  • Stonings aside, this is mildly Truth in Television. Some abstinence groups are very ... active outside of meetings.
  • They also did the stoning-by-Christians thing on an episode of Law and Order, with Samwise Gamgee/ Rudy as their leader, no less.
  • The recent episode involving the murder of an abortion doctor in church (Ripped from the Headlines) was surprisingly fair, showing radicals on both sides, and gave good arguments both for and against abortion. While there were both Strawmen and Political Stereotypes involved, the Aesop of the episode seemed to be that "Shooting a man in the back of the head in church and calling it "defense of a third party" is wrong."
• In The West Wing, of course. Jokingly referenced in "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics":

President Josiah Bartlet: We agree on nothing, Max. (...) Senator Lobell: You know why? President Josiah Bartlet: Because I'm a lily-livered, bleeding-heart, liberal, egghead communist. Senator Lobell: Yes, sir. And I'm a gun-toting, redneck son-of-a-bitch. President Josiah Bartlet: Yes, you are. Senator Lobell: We agree on that.

• In Dharma and Greg the main characters parents were this, Dharma's being a mix of Democrat and Green and Greg's straight Republican, especially Greg's mother and Dharma's father.

Western Animation

• American Dad - Stan Smith, the gun-toting CIA-operative lead is a Strawman Conservative, played for laughs. His daughter Hayley is a Strawman Liberal, played for laughs as well. Hayley generally comes across as the more sensible of the two. In a departure from this trope's norms, Stan is consistently portrayed with sympathy and insight.
  • Beyond being a Strawman Conservative, Stan's major "thing" is that he will latch immediately onto any ideology that catches his fancy. For example, he once briefly converted to Islam because Francine was bugging him and he liked the idea of being able to control his wife. Stan is a universal strawman: an impulsive zealot, but lovable enough that the writers can use him to parody and pillory the excesses of any political position without losing the audience.
• Lisa from The Simpsons has generally been cast as the Granola Girl / Soapbox Sadie type of Straw Liberal. After noticing they were basically using her as a mouthpiece for their own views, the writing staff unofficially agreed to stop making episodes centering on her politics.
• South Park....where to start?^[context?]
• Ralph Kane from Wait Till Your Father Gets Home is a deliberately over-the-top caricature of the late-1960s/early-1970s ultra-right anticommunist.