Basic Trope: A political group is targeted that doesn't exist.
- Straight: Bob, the President of Tropeland, tries to ban tuba-eating, but no one eats tubas.
- Exaggerated: Bob calls for action against organizations of one-eyed clowns who eat pickles at 2:00 a.m. while speaking a strange dialect of Japanese with random phrases of Pig Latin and wearing dead vultures on their heads. No such organization exists.
- Downplayed: Bob demands a crackdown on anarcho-monarchism, which is a real ideology, but one with virtually no followers ... or, at least, no sincere followers.
- Justified:
- He has come from an Alternate Universe where people eating tubas led to the apocalypse.
- He's an idiot, crazy, or both.
- Candidate Bob needs a platform for his election campaign and this was the first thing that came to mind.
- 'Candidate Bob' is a joke to lighten the mood compared to your average election.note
- Inverted:
- The nonexistent tuba-eaters of Tropeland take a stand against President Bob.
- President Bob hails the nonexistent tuba-eaters of Tropeland.
- Subverted:
- There turn out to be people who actually eat tubas.
- Bob was using Spy Speak, with tuba-eaters referring to actual political opponents who hate his guts and want to get him out of office by any means necessary.
- Double Subverted:
- Said people are actually Internet trolls joking about it, and no tuba-eating takes place.
- He was lying about his opponents' desires, maybe even their existence.
- Parodied: Tuba-eaters materialize out of thin air, just to take Bob down for the injustice he's perpetrating.
- Zig-Zagged:
- The Internet trolls cause people to start eating tubas, only for Bob to start eating tubas. Then, the tuba-eaters start complaining against anti-tuba-eaters (people trying to ban tuba consumption), who really don't exist.
- Bob leads a People's Republic of Tyranny and he goes after dissidents for "tuba-eating" with such brutality that it motivates everyone else to take up arms against him.
- Only every other person Bob accuses of eating tubas does. Their motivations for eating tubas and the consequences of same vary.
- Averted: Bob campaigns against (or for) real political issues.
- Enforced: The writers of the show were inspired by a candidate who complained about a tiny or nonexistent political movement.
- Lampshaded: "But no one eats tubas!"
- Invoked:
- Bob knows that no one eats tubas, and is doing it as a publicity stunt.
- Bob's administration is incompetent and corrupt, and he knows that concocting an enemy will distract people from the problems of his still being in charge.
- Exploited: Bob's rivals use his obsession with banning tuba-eating in a smear campaign to make themselves look better.
- Defied: Bob does his research before campaigning and realizes no one is eating tubas.
- Discussed: "Maybe, just maybe, I should try to ban something that doesn't exist, to get more publicity."
- Conversed: "I'm glad my president isn't insane enough to ban tuba-eating like the one in Bob's Adventure Two."
- Implied: Alice goes into her local music store one morning and sees a prominently placed sign reading, "By order of the President, it is illegal to eat tubas."
- Deconstructed: Nobody takes Bob seriously ever again after he brings up the non-issue of tuba-eating. He loses his bid for re-election or reappointment, or he's forced to resign under a cloud of mockery.
- Reconstructed: But later, when people start eating tubas and everything starts to go haywire, he's vindicated.
- Played for Laughs: There turn out to be tuba-eaters who are guilty of crimes, but said crimes are tiny.
- Played for Drama: Some Tropelanders assume there must be tuba-eaters, and they must be evil if President Bob banned them, so they become fanatical about stamping it out. The resulting Witch Hunts destroy relationships left, right, and centre.
- Played for Horror: Bob backs up his campaign against the nonexistent tuba-eaters by turning Tropeland into a Police State and ordering gruesome summary executions of everyone who tries to point out that tuba-eaters don't exist and wouldn't even pose a threat to other people if they did.
There's no such thing as a Windmill Political. Don't be silly.
