I am wondering if you can assist me with identifying a certain kind a fallacy?
I believe it might be the Straw Man fallacy, but I'm unsure.
In this instance, however, an opponent is not attributing false positions to an actual opponent.
Rather, he is actually inventing a nonexistent opponent, or a group of opponents, which he refers to by the newly coined word xxxxx-ists (as in federalists, capitalists, modernists, etc.) (I won't give the actual newly coined name because it's not really relevant -- it could be anything.)
Then, without defining exactly what he means by the newly coined label xxxxx-ists, the arguer attributes all sorts of negative and easily debunkable views to that opponent.
For example (and this is completely made up), suppose someone is passionate about ice cream but dislikes vanilla, and so he calls his opponents "vanilla-ists", and then attributes to them all sorts of false attributes and easily debunkable arguments. Is that the straw man argument? And is it straw man despite the fact that the group of vanilla-ists doesn't even really exist? ("Vanilla-ists" in this example are not merely people who like vanilla, but, rather, are people who like vanilla AND who also have all the horrible attributes and weak positions the arguer attributes to them.)