Basic Trope: A character is supposedly there to provide an opposing opinion, but this is an Informed Attribute.
- Straight: The news/talk show Trope Weekly says they have someone with left- or right-of-centre political views in their discussion segments, but that person often just agrees with their fellow panellists of other views.
- Exaggerated: Trope Weekly has a panelist who is supposedly very progressive/conservative, but they actively argue against their own supposed viewpoint.
- Downplayed: The progressive/conservative in question expresses opinions against the panel's conservative or progressive majority, but doesn't speak for their beliefs as frequently or as passionately as the rest of the panel does.
- Justified: The putative progressive/conservative in question is a moderate who only slightly leans towards one side or the other.
- Inverted: It's the non-opposing opinions that don't speak up — the minority opinion is dominant, not just vocal.
- Subverted: The progressive/conservative in question either goes along with the rest of the panel or stays silent most of the time, but then turns around in the last couple of minutes to deliver an amazing comeback that destroys the opposing side.
- Double Subverted: After that, the others refute them effortlessly to close the segment.
- Parodied: Trope Weekly is composed of panelists who literally wear the names of their political beliefs on gigantic nametags, all of whom either stay silent or agree with everyone they'd logically be against.
- Zig-Zagged: Some panellists are openly and vehemently left or right of the political centre, others are timid and just agree with whoever last spoke, some espouse centrist views consistently, and still others disagree for the sake of disagreeing.
- Averted:
- On Trope Weekly, progressives and conservatives both argue passionately with very clear opposing viewpoints.
- Trope Weekly presents issues with minimal political bias.
- Enforced: "How can we avoid accusations of bias without actually giving the opposing side a place to challenge our beliefs?"
- Lampshaded: "You know, no true progressive/conservative would agree with those conservatives/progressives like that."
- Invoked: The executives are running a test to see how long it would take an audience to see through the strawman/supported views and complain for further tooling of other political segments.
- Exploited: The strawman position is open for any debater to fill, so Bob decides to frame himself as a crazy conservative/progressive to get the job.
- Defied: Trope Weekly refuses to hire commentators of any political persuasion who can't come up with clever rejoinders arguing for their views.
- Discussed: "How am I [person allied with network's politics] supposed to take your [person opposed to network's politics] points seriously, when all you were ever supposed to be was a strawman?"
- Conversed: Behind the scenes of Trope Weekly, the executives are trying to find a way to represent the other side fairly to create a better debate. The progressive/conservative advocate is then placed in and is either given fair points and adds to the network, or is eventually watered down into the strawman s/he was always destined to become.
- Implied: Alice is the lone left-winger or right-winger on a panel dominated by subscribers to the other side. Bob is a politically neutral civilian who watches the show regularly. He can never remember exactly what she said for her side.
- Intended Audience Reaction: Trope Weekly, a satire of ideological or partisan talk shows that pretend not to be those things, was created as a Show Within a Show and Unconventional Learning Experience for media literacy and critical thinking.
- Deconstructed: Alice decides to join a talk show as the opposing side to try and balance the debate. However, as the scripts are being handed out before each show, Alice slowly realizes she's little more than a strawman and will never be taken seriously. Alice shortly leaves the station in search for other work.
- Reconstructed: Alice then returns to the station to fill her previous role in because she needs the money really badly and doesn't care how she gets it.
- Played for Laughs: In a fictional talk show, the strawman starts yelling and screaming so loud, the cartoon rabies start spilling from his mouth.
- Played for Drama: Trope Weekly's ideological hardliners call for policies that would be catastrophic. Unfortunately, their government pursues those policies. Their timid opponent mopes about not having had the courage to speak up.
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