Sort of sounds like the title to a horror movie, and in some respects, it is. It is a horror of poor logic and argumentation…though perhaps what makes it worse is that many do it on purpose.
The idea of an argument of a straw man goes back to 1886 according to Marriam-Webster, though clearly the idea of a scarecrow is far older, at least back to the 1500s. Dictionary.com says it was first used relative to logic or debates in 1896. Stanford University’s Enclyopedia of Philosophy suggests that perhaps Issac Watts writing in 1724 provided the origins of the concept relative to logic. Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty writes “You put forth a straw man because you know it will be easy for you to knock down or discredit. It’s a way of misrepresenting your opponent’s position.”
Stanford’s Enclyopedia says it this way: “occurs when an opponent’s point of view is distorted in order to make it easier to refute.” It is related to the fallacy of ignoratio elenchi (irrelevant conclusion) which is “misdirection in argumentation rather than a weak inference.”
In general, this fallacy of logic is what we are facing today, especially if one listens to social media. Almost every article on there, especially behind the façade of “YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT,” seems to be a strawman argument.
See, fighting a strawman is fairly easy. As the monkeys of The Wizard of Oz demonstrated, 
you can simply pull that person apart or cause it to run away shrieking in fear of fire. Thus, once you create your “enemy” as nothing but a strawman, then you always win.
Most people today are simply unwilling to get into the nuances of the great challenges that face us today. Rather than actually confronting the messy, probably no easy answer (maybe NO answer at all that will suffice everyone), it’s simply easier to blast away at large, overly simplistic opponents.
You see this from both sides of the political aisle. Someone wants to consider education voucher, well you must be a racist. Someone wants to defend Planned Parenthood, then you must be a child-hater. Someone wants to defund Planned Parenthood, or at least defund abortion, then you must be fighting a war on women (even if the someone is a woman).
This consistent braying of nonsense, fighting strawmen has done nothing for us but increase rancor and more deeply divided us. Try to have that discussion about abortion. It is very difficult even among the most logical and kind people. But go ahead and degree that the pro-abortion people really want to just kill children or the anti-abortion people just hate women, and you’ve done nothing but divide us.
I know that I don’t have all the answers for where we find ourselves right now as a nation. I, like many, have opinions. I think that my opinions are based on both logic and a core set of values…but then often, so are your opinions. When our core set of values does not meet or match, finding a way forward in a civic entity together will naturally be tricky.
I think it can be done…but not if we start by attacking strawmen.