Basic Trope: A faction mixes imagery and beliefs from multiple facets of things the audience considers evil, even when it seems contradictory.
- Straight: The Collectivist party, or Collies, are violent extremists seeking to destroy the political system and uphold the ideology and imagery of both the Dirty Commies and Those Wacky Nazis.
- Exaggerated:
- The Collies' party doctrine consists entirely of mutually exclusive positions like "patriarchal feminism" or "atheist creationism" and simultaneously support both the Soviets and Nazis in World War II. Its members dress in uniforms combining the NKVD's and Gestapo's.
- The Collies are not only pro-Nazism and pro-Communism, but also pro-Capitalism, pro-Monarchism and pro-Anarchism all at the same time.
- The Collies adhere to an ideology with goals and beliefs that is so extreme, bizarre, and full of contradictions, that even its own membership has trouble comprehending it.
- Downplayed: The Populist party is socially rightist and economically leftist, and while its rhetoric is confrontational, stays clear of extremism and wishes to change the system through legal and moderate means.
- The National Communist party is economically communist but tend to agree more with the Conservatives on social issues than with the Progressives and tends to be more nationalist than even the Conservatives on said issues. They stay clear of being outright ultranationalist on social issues however, and focus on left-wing economic issues first.
- The People's Patriot Party is culturally ultra nationalist but tends to agree with the socialists more than the typical right wingers about economic issues, even moreso than their mainstream progressive left enemies. They stay clear of being economically communist and focus on far-right social issues, however.
- The Tropeland Workers' Party has traditionally advocated for tariffs and immigration restrictions to protect the jobs of their voters in addition to supporting labor unions and welfare, but recent events have lead to a more nationalistic faction taking root and railing against socially liberal policies seen as bourgeois.
- The National Bolshevik Party is mostly made up of disaffected youths steeped in punk-rock counterculture. They use radical politics as an edgy aesthetic and aren't committed to an actual ideology, only desiring an outlet against a stagnating economy and a political scene that excludes them.
- Justified:
- The Collies are Strasserites, National Bolsheviks, Baathists or some other ideology that literally advocates for being far-left economically and far-right socially. Those within their ranks are either former Dirty Commies or Those Wacky Nazis who sacrificed one part of their ideology for unity or those who wanted to Take a Third Option between the radical camp.
- The Collies identify as Marxist-Leninists, but live in a time period and/or culture that’s extremely conservative, if not downright reactionary, from the perspective of a modern western audience.
- The Collies consist of people that otherwise hate each other and have different goals, but are pulling an Enemy Mine united front to overthrow the regime as their number one priority.
- The Collies embody the worst characteristics of both the Soviets and the Nazis. They have the racism and xenophobia of the Nazis, the collectivism and famines of the Soviet Union, and the authoritarian, militant, industrial tendencies of both; They also purge a wide variety of “undesirables”, be they bourgeoisie or racial minorities.
- The Collies have power as their sole goal, and are so authoritarian that they even hide their party's history, making it ambiguous whether they originally came from the communists or the Nazis.
- The Collies live somewhere where the social Overton window is so far to the right that the only way you are allowed to hold a leftist position is on economics or somewhere where the economic Overton window is so far to the left that the only way you are allowed to hold a rightist position is on cultural issues.
- The Collies live in an Alternate History where ideologies developed along different lines, so their beliefs, while extreme, are not contradictory in-universe.
- In an Alternate History story, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was never broken up, and the Nazis and Soviets eventually united into the Collies.
- The Collies are controlled opposition that make the ruling party more palatable by making the alternative look absurd, extremist, and insane. Anyone that looks remotely reasonable gets arrested.
- Subverted:
- The party mixed Soviet and Nazi imagery, but otherwise is just a run of a mill mainstream political grouping with no violent tendencies. Or while dressing like Commies, the Collies' beliefs are just straight up fascist with no contradiction or vice versa.
- The Collies split quickly once Surprisingly Realistic Outcome occurs and its members can't hold contradictory opinions.
- Double Subverted:
- Until the members of the Collies are so caught up in their imagery that they begin spouting all sorts of radical views for real.
- The members of the Collies form a Communist and Fascist united front against the regime anyway even if they acknowledge their long term opposition.
- Inverted:
- The United Front combines symbolism from otherwise mainstream movements and politics, trying to sound as anti-radical as possible.
- The Monetarist Mass Movement combines fanatical collectivism with fanatical capitalism. The movement's Glorious Leader is half The Generalissimo, half Corrupt Corporate Executive.
- The OneWorld Inc. is a gigantic corporation which supplanted the role of nation-states in all of Earth, unifying the entire humanity under principles of free-market capitalism & cultural progressivism.
- Parodied: The Anarcho-Monarchist Revolutionary Faction consists of radicals that simultaneously want no governing state and an absolute monarchy.
- Zig Zagged: The Collies use both Soviet and Nazi imagery, but the party bills itself as a Far Left radical party, only for its social policy to be too nationalistic to be in unison with other far left parties, but the collies still claim to uphold extreme egalitarianism, while simultaneously courting radical traditionalists alongside commies. Their policies were inspired by the communist regime of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu.
- Averted: The Dirty Commies and Those Wacky Nazis are the biggest enemies of the regime or the heroes, but they otherwise hate each other as well.
- Enforced:
- The creators want to make the bad guys political extremists but don't want to depict a particular ideology, so they mix and match symbols and positions.
- The thesis of the story is about The Horseshoe Effect.
- Defied: The Dirty Commies and Those Wacky Nazis not only violently clash on the street, but anyone suggesting a united front against the regime is quickly purged amongst their ranks.
- Lampshaded: Upon seeing the enemy regime mixing its symbolism and beliefs, the hero doesn't question it and just yells out "McBain to base. Under attack by Commie-Nazis!"
- Conversed: "Do you think that combining imagery from things the world hates makes the bad guy look eviler or crazier or straight up savvier?"
- Discussed: Some democratic politicians talk about how extremists hate each other more than the regime they try to overthrow, meaning that united fronts between extremists are prone to collapse unless they're following a syncretic ideology from the start which embraces these contradictions.
- Implied: The Collies' beliefs and inner workings are left unspoken, but images of their uniforms, guns and propaganda posters draw from the Third Reich and USSR.
- Invoked: The leader of the front is an opportunist mixing radical beliefs to appeal to as many people as possible.
- Exploited:
- The Collies use their syncretic ideology to rally support from Fascists and Communists, both camps firmly convinced the Collies are on their side while the Collies are the ones exploiting the other.
- The regime uses every single bad thing they can think of when smearing the Collies to exaggerate how evil they are.
- The heroes point out the contradictory aspects of the Collie’s organization, causing infighting and disunity.
- Deconstructed: The organization's insistence on combining already controversial beliefs and methods wins them no supporters, and its existing members are unable to get along or comprehend holding exclusive viewpoint.
- Reconstructed: A group of opportunists create an entirely new belief capitalizing on the frustrations of the people in order to maximize support without overtly stating that they are drawing from existing movements, while covertly doing that.
- Played For Laughs:
- All extremist ideologies, the Dirty Commies, Those Wacky Nazis, Bomb-Throwing Anarchists and the One Nation Under Copyright decide to put aside their differences and take down the centrist democratic establishment.
- The leader of the party looks like the fusion of Hitler and Stalin and speaks with an accent that shifts from German to Russian and back constantly. All of its members are self-hating bigots calling for the extermination of their own race.
- Played For Horror: The Collies end up creating a state that combines the worst traits of a Nazi State and a Communist state. They even end up committing atrocities that are worse than the Holocaust and the Holodomor combined.
Heil Commie Nazis, the bourgeoisie-killing master race!
