How to Build a Strawman.

As a recruit into the military we used paper targets to represent the enemy.  The problem with this is, those paper targets never moved...or shot back.  It was in fact a Fallacy to call these targets representations of the enemy.  A better description is one my football coach used to use...he called people who went full speed against the tackle dummy, but held back in a real game..."Dummy Tackle All Americans".  

The first step in building a Strawman in an argument is to build a false representation of your opponent and avoid the actual argument.  . For instance, "The Republican electoral resurgence – like Ronald Reagan’s original coalition – combines collaborative but often contradictory forces, from anti-government Tea Partiers and libertarians to corporatists who feast on government contracts and Christian nationalists who want government-imposed “morality.”(1)  Let's take this statement apart and describe just two of the  Strawmen.

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