Argue against a distorted version of the claim instead of the real one.
FIG. 17aa, the claim as stated. b, the figure answered instead. c, the break, which falls only on b.
Illustrative example
"We should add a bike lane on Elm Street." "So you want to ban cars from the city entirely? That would destroy every local business."
A strawman swaps the real claim for a weaker, more extreme version that’s easier to knock down. The response sounds confident and engaged, but it never touches what was actually proposed.
Spot it by checking whether the reply describes a position anyone in the conversation actually holds. If the “so you’re saying” summary is more extreme than the original sentence, it’s a strawman.
The fix is simple: ask the person to point to exactly where the extreme version was said. Usually, it wasn’t.
The figure in motion
FIG. 17b
FIG. 17ba, Alex holds a sign reading "We should recycle more because it cuts down landfill waste". b, his opponent builds a scarecrow labelled with a distorted version of it. c, the opponent knocks the scarecrow down. The real argument is never answered. Narrated; captions carry the narration and the sign text.
Seen in the wild
Real, sourced instances of this technique in actual public debate.
Examples are chosen for how clearly they show the technique, not for who said it.
Sarah Palin
Leans right
Former Governor of Alaska; 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee
“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care.”
The real claim was Section 1233 of the House health care bill (HR 3200), which would have had Medicare reimburse doctors for optional, voluntary end-of-life planning consultations with patients, with no mandate on patients or doctors and no rationing authority.
Reading
A voluntary, reimbursement-only counseling provision was replaced with a fabricated mandatory tribunal judging who deserves to live, and the argument responds to that invented tribunal rather than the actual provision.
Donald Trump
Leans right
President of the United States
“No planes. No energy. (Laughter.) When the wind stops blowing, that's the end of your electric.”
He was responding to the Green New Deal resolution (H.Res.109), whose actual text calls for removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from transportation 'as much as is technologically feasible' through investment in electric vehicle infrastructure, public transit, and high-speed rail.
Reading
A qualified, investment-based emissions-reduction goal was replaced with an absolute claim that the resolution bans planes and all energy except wind, and the argument proceeds against that invented ban.
Barack Obama
Leans left
President of the United States
“The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy or some form of war, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not three months from now, but soon. Congressional rejection of this deal leaves any U.S. administration that is absolutely committed to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon with one option: another war in the Middle East.”
Senate critics of the Iran nuclear deal, including Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker and Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, opposed the deal while explicitly stating they did not want war.
Reading
Opponents' stated position (reject this deal, keep negotiating or maintain sanctions, not war) was replaced with a binary in which rejecting the deal only leaves the option of war.
Barack Obama
Leans left
President of the United States
“Governor Romney doesn't have a five-point plan. He has a one-point plan. And that plan is to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules.”
Moments earlier in the same debate, Mitt Romney had described his actual platform: 'That's why I put out a five-point plan that gets America 12 million new jobs in four years,' covering energy, trade enforcement, worker training, deficit reduction, and small-business support.
Reading
Obama denied the existence of Romney's stated multi-point platform and substituted a single reductive claim, then argued against that substitute instead of the five points Romney had just listed.
Know a good example?
Suggest a real, sourced instance of Strawman for this page. Submissions are reviewed before anything is added.