The GOP has a stock of liberal archtypes that they use to mock the liberal with much effectiveness, whereas the liberal archtypes of the GOP is pretty much that of a anti-intellctual yahoo who shoots from the hip, which the GOP plays it up with much effectiveness amongest their voting base.
Here I have started up the list of literary archtypes used by both sides, and some anti-GOP literary archtypes I think may arise in response to the experience of the past 5 years. This is of course not complete, and I welcome any additions and modifications.
Some Liberal Literary Archtypes Perpetuated by the GOP
- Surrender Monkeys: coined by the Simpsons, it is the most used shorthand images by the GOP, particularly against those who questioned the War on Iraq. Other literary sighting of this stock character happen in (so I am told) Tom Clancy's novels
- Hollywood Elites: The Evian-and-Limosine archtype is used with much effectiveness by the GOP to curry favor with the "heartland" crowd. see Jane Fonda.
- Head-in-the-Cloud/Fascist Academics: This narrative is used primamry by David Horowitz et al, to mock academia. The "atheist professor" story also gets plenty of mileage with the Evangelical Email Crowd.
Some Conervative Literary Archtypes Perpetuated by the Dems
- Mad Cowboys who shoots from the hip: GWB being the posterboy for this. As mentioned above, this actually is a positive trait ("straight talking", "good to have beer with") for people who vote for Bush. Instances of this might by characters from "Dr. Strangelove"
- Undereducated Creationist Yokels: Again, this is played by the GOP to be a positive trait among the "heartland" crowd.
Possible Emerging Literary Archtypes Against the GOP?
- Michael Brown Republicans: In future novels and movies, will there be a stock character, whose incompetence, corruption and demeaner, resemble a certain ex-FEMA head?
- Fourtunate Son Chickenhawks: Are we going to see in popular media of this types of characters? Imagine an episode of "Family Ties" where Alex P. Keaton ducks out of service while Skippy, his blue collar friend, signs up for the Marines because he couldn't afford college.
- Family-Value Hypocrites: It's one of the oldest and common stock characters (the evil Bishop in Disney's "Hunchback of Notre Dame", the Senator from Michael Crichton's "The Rising Sun"), will this literary archtype be more closely tied to the GOP for years to come? How about a novel where the good guy has to stop a deranged televengelists from putting s hit on a Foreign Leader?