Basic Trope: Two groups purport to be ideological opponents, and yet have numerous beliefs in common.
- Straight: The popular political drama The West Trope features Party A and Party B, who claim to be viciously opposed to one another, and yet they share numerous attitudes and goals (although neither would ever admit it).
- Exaggerated: Party A's manifesto is literally identical to Party B's, just with every instance of "Party B" replaced by "Party A". Despite this, they oppose each other practically to the point of violence.
- Downplayed: The ideological similarities between Party A and Party B are there, but this isn't the major focus of the work, and the differences between them are more striking.
- Justified:
- Both parties hate the same government, so of course they would hold the same positions needed to take it down.
- While most members of Parties A and B are well to the right or left of "centre", their respective leaders and decision-makers are relatively centrist politicians.
- The Avian Party thinks of the Bird Party as a mockery of itself, while the Bird Party thinks that of the Avian Party, and both refuse to believe that it's a case of concurrent development.
- Inverted: Party A and Party B are allied with each other and claim to be working towards the same goals, but are in fact opposed on almost every issue.
- Subverted: Party A and Party B claim to be viciously opposed to each other. Close inspection of Party A's manifesto reveals that their platform is very similar to Party B's. However, this is a clever ploy by the leader of Party A to make their platform sound more palatable to Party B (or people who would otherwise vote for Party B), so that they can join them in coalition and then start subverting Party B from within.
- Double Subverted: ... but even after the ploy is successful and Party A joins Party B in coalition, Alice and Bob, the leaders of Party A and B respectively, are forced to admit that they agree with each other on numerous political issues.
- Parodied: Party A and Party B attend a rally with politicians and thugs on each side with nearly identical appearances, actions, and words, the only difference between them being the logos they wear.
- Zig-Zagged: The Parties use similar tactics and promote similar positions, but that's only for pragmatic short-term purposes while the two have very opposing long-term goals, but in practice their ideologies would result in a Full-Circle Revolution that leads to something extremely similar anyway in practice.
- Averted: Party A and Party B claim to be viciously opposed to each other, and indeed their respective platforms are dramatically different.
- Enforced: The creators of The West Trope had intended the show's political landscape to be highly diverse in reflection of the complexity of real-life politics. However, for fear of inciting controversy, the executives restrict their characters to expressing political opinions within a very narrow political spectrum; ergo, even political opponents end up being similar by default.
- Lampshaded:
- "Seems like the more different these politicians get from each other, the more they start to look the same."
- Party B was in government, but Party A has just replaced it, and Alice announces her intention to carry out Bob's unfinished plans. He approves heartily.
- Invoked: In order to make the status quo look like the only option, the drama features antagonistic parties who are rowdy and promote no real end goal.
- Exploited:
- The drama holds a centrist bias and simplifies its extreme opponents as the same people as a sort of propaganda.
- A third party, Party C, builds a large support base by highlighting the similarities between Party A and Party B and presenting itself as the best alternative to people frustrated by either.
- Defied: Party A and B, Alice and Bob more than anybody else, flat-out reject any claims that they're similar by pointing out that their end goals are incompatible and any similarities are just side effects of them opposing the same status quo, which is a given for anyone opposing the current order.
- Discussed: The protagonists run down the beliefs of the parties and find many similarities in their supposedly different economic, political and social end goals.
- Conversed: Members of each party have an argument and find themselves strangely agreeing with each other on certain topics.
- Implied: The parties may preach different things, but behind the scenes the politicians only seem interested in power.
- Deconstructed: The parties realize their similarities and unite to form an extreme government faction, only to fall apart since superficial similarities in appearance and common hatred don't mean anything when it comes to uniting complex political ideologies.
- Reconstructed: The parties decide to work out their differences and use their strengths to form a new, syncretic ideology based off their old positions and manage to topple the government with a broad appeal.
- Played for Laughs: "We eat our bread with the butter side down, while they ear their bread with the butter side up."
- Played for Drama:
- The politicians in each party find themselves lost as they find themselves agreeing with their nominal enemy more and more.
- Despite being the leaders of Parties A and B respectively, Alice and Bob are seeing each other — and they feel disgusted with themselves for it.
- Played for Horror: The politicians in each party are in total agreement on policies that would lead Troperia into a Forever War abroad and/or the summoning of an Eldritch Abomination and attendant barbarism at home.
Click here to go back to The Horseshoe Effect, or you could just hit the back button. Same result anyway.
