Basic Trope: A jaded politician who at best abuses and twists the system for their own ends, and at worst is fully criminal.
- Straight: Polly T. Ishan's picks for government positions are her friends, her family members, and whoever offered the largest bribe. Her policies typically benefit Corrupt Corporate Executives, Morally Bankrupt Bankers and various other sleazy people/corporations/organizations that give her "campaign donations", regardless of what her constituents want.
- Exaggerated:
- After taking a ton of "campaign donations" from a MegaCorp, Polly T. Ishan votes in favour of laws that guarantee it the right to establish a monopoly, and then pollute and harm its customers as much as it wants to. She's also allied with The Mafia, and uses her insider status to steer police investigations away from their crimes, and exploit and engineer loopholes. On top of that, she regularly gives sensitive information to her country's enemies in exchange for favors like rigging elections.
- President Ishan is a full-blown despotic tyrant, ordering the military and police to arrest, torture, or kill anyone who even dares to question her crooked, thieving ways.
- Downplayed:
- Polly Ishan once abuses her position to help her friend Eric get a contract. However, she only does it because he needs the money to pay his Delicate and Sickly girl's medical bills, and he is qualified for the job.
- Sleazy Politician
- Justified:
- Ishan is the leader (or at least a high-ranking official) of an absolute monarchy, dictatorship, or other autocratic government, where power is concentrated in the hands of a few people, with no checks and balances to keep them from doing whatever the hell they want.
- Ishan was elected fair and square in a democratic country, but said democracy is poor, unstable, and has very weak rule of law. While Ishan can't send death squads after anti-government dissidents, there is still little (or nothing) to stop her from taking bribes from shady characters.
- Inverted: Polly T. Ishan is an honest politician who fights corruption and refuses to be bought out by shady entities.
- Subverted: Polly is charged with corruption, but the judge acquits her.
- Double Subverted: It turns out that she bribed the judge.
- Parodied:
- Ishan ends all her speeches with "Moreover, I haven't taken a bribe in the last twenty-four hours."
- Ishan puts sponsored ads from sleazy corporations everywhere — except for her T-shirt, which reads, "I am NOT in the pocket of big corporations."
- When she's charged with treason, Ishan admits to everything and says it doesn't count because she had her fingers crossed while swearing loyalty to her country.
- Ishan tweets a lot from her official account, "@CorruptTraitor". Everyone is shocked when she's discovered to be ... a corrupt traitor.
- The Fictional Political Parties have names like "Mafia Party", "Treason Party", and "MegaCorp Dicksucker Party".
- Polly Ishan's corrupt behavior is traced back towards her childhood as the head of the Middle School Student Counsel.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Polly varies from acting corrupt one day and being a Reasonable Authority Figure the next day.
- Polly is seen working with both corruption and the people fighting the corruption. Which side she is actually working for and which side she is spying on is not clear.
- Averted: There are no politicians in the work.
- Enforced:
- A dictator who wants to push a Democracy Is Bad message forces the author to write about how "awful" democratically elected leaders are.
- An attack ad targets Polly.
- The story pushes the message that Capitalism Is Bad.
- Lampshaded: "I hope we can vote out that senator who's obviously in the pocket of MegaCorp."
- Invoked: MegaCorp approaches Polly with a juicy "campaign donation".
- Exploited:
- After finding out that Polly is corrupt, MegaCorp decides to offer her a bribe.
- Polly's main rival, Paulo, focuses his campaign on his honesty and transparency. Even though he likely isn’t transparent or honest himself.
- Defied: Every politician is vetted regularly and thoroughly. If they make it through the pre-election vetting at all, corrupt people like Ishan are removed from power as soon as they show signs of indulging in something like bribery or nepotism.
- Discussed: "Please tell me the candidates in this election aren't in the pocket of MegaCorp."
- Conversed: "Why do the idiots in this show keep voting for corrupt Jerkasses like Ishan?"
- Implied: Polly is seen being elected to the Senate. One Time Skip later, she's in jail.
- Deconstructed: Ishan gets charged with corruption, and will likely be stripped of her position and spend the next decade behind bars.
- Reconstructed:
- Polly bribes the judge to let her go free.
- Polly is convicted of corruption, but the other corrupt politicians learn from the mistakes that got her caught.
- Polly has a Heel–Face Turn and later strives to mend the damage she caused by offering information on other corrupt deals to the judges.
- Played for Laughs: After being convicted of corruption, Polly tries to use her pardoning power on herself. She throws a fit when she learns that some other corrupt slimeball has already used that trick, and the government was smart enough to patch that loophole afterwards.
- Played for Drama:
- Polly runs for president, and has a good chance of becoming a President Evil with the power to pardon any criminal assisting her.
- Polly doesn't want to assist The Mafia, but they threaten to kill her, her family, her friends, and her pets if she refuses, and she lives in a setting where Police Are Useless, giving her little choice but to comply.
- Polly was once a righteous crusader who nobly served her constituents and was the personal hero of Connie Gressman. When Connie gets elected to Congress, she is shocked to find that Polly is now a corrupt crook who grew disillusioned with her thankless job and hungry for money or power. Connie attempts to sway Polly into changing for the better while Polly attempts to serve as The Corruptor to Connie.
- Played for Horror: Polly made a Deal with the Devil (as in, Satan) to gain political power. In return, she looks the other way while he kills and tortures people. It gets to the point where she no longer cares, or worse, takes joy in his havoc.
Make sure to vote for Corrupt Politician, who totally isn’t taking bribes or anything like that.
