Real life example! In the UK in the 1980s, Screaming Lord Sutch, aging sixties D-list novelty record no-hit wonder and attention junkie, formed the Monster Raving Loony Party, a real-life embodiment of Monty Python's Silly Party. At one election it actually did quite well, not winning any seats, but getting more votes than a very senior Conservative politician to whom allegations of corruption had been attached (justifiably).
Since then the Loonies have continued to put up numerous candidates at every election, despite the suicide some years ago of the genuinely troubled Screaming Lord Sutch. The party is now run by complete nobodies with silly names and silly hats who just want to be looked at for a few minutes every five years. Somewhere along the line, everybody has forgotten that, since this is a joke, it ought to be funny, possibly because nobody involved has any discernible comedic talent whatsoever. Though it should be remembered that the entire premise is based on a Monty Python sketch which the Pythons themselves considered funny enough to spin out for roughly five minutes, as opposed to 30 years.
It should also be noted that, just like the Silly Party in the original sketch, splinter groups have come into being. It is currently called the Official Monster Raving Loony Party to distinguish it from various unofficial Monster Raving Loonies who feel that the party should have an actual agenda of protesting against the "madness" of various other forms of government by means of broad satire, and/or serious links with the Anarchist movement, as opposed to simply dressing up in wacky clothes and shouting: "Look at me! Look at me!"
By the way, the Loonies have several times fielded candidates who officially changed their names so that Silly Party candidates from the original Monty Python sketch would appear on real ballot papers, notably Jethro Q. Walrustitty.
Edited by Fantomas
Lord high Xecutioner
In my D&D game, the anti-slavery faction are the "Patriots" and the pro-slavery faction are the "Family-Valuists".
Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!
Sean Murray I said "This is a pretty complex trope in fiction. This can be elaborated upon. And why should this be 'less formal'?" I think the introduction could be shorter because it reads like an attempted Wikipedia description — TV Tropes is less formal
by nature. It's not terrible, in fact the first sentence is a great opener, but explaining in depth what a political party is, and how fiction does indeed differ from Real Life, didn't make me want to read any further, and aren't essential in explaining the trope.
"Made-up political parties appearing in fiction.
"Political parties are a common occurrence to be found in just about any democracy. Individuals sharing similar ideologies and opinions band together to try and win elections and promote a political agenda that best serves the interests of people pertaining to that ideology and, if you're lucky, other people as well. Likewise, fictional settings that are democracies are typically shown to have political parties which reflect the issues and opinions which characterize the political climate of a story's setting.
"Most often these are single-issue parties
which only seek to promote a single topic or policy, but the Fictional Political Party can be used in a variety of ways to enrich the political environment of a fictional world.
"On one hand, this trope can be played seriously as it can be a reflection of people's attitudes towards the events or backstory that shape the setting; such examples may be viewed as a "realistic" political ideology that may exist had the extraordinary events in the story's world been something that occurred in the real one [...]"
Edited by sbahnhof