I was reading about the collapse of the Venezuelan health system here, and noted almost all the comments were gloating right wing Hillary, Obama haters who had no grasp of how similar the methods of the totalitarian Chavez/Maduro government of Venezuela are to those of the GOP.  And how dissimilar they are to the actions of the 8 years of the Obama administration. Including his in rescuing this nation from the last Republican engineered US economic collapse in 2007-8. Obama's actions, which were unambiguously opposed by the GOP, the Party that brought on the 'great recession' on their watch.

George Orwell described totalitarianism, absolute rule by a Party, which is closely related to and the end stage goal of despotism. Orwell: A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible.... Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.

I used that quote before when the Trump campaign created this history in explaining their way out of Trump's years of 'birther' lying on Obama's birth certificate:  "Mr. Trump did a great service to the President and the country by bringing closure to the issue..." A Big Lie if there ever was one.

Venezuela and Big Lies:

Venezuela is in economic trouble because the Party of Chavez has told big lies about his government and what it has accomplished, and has lied about who or what is at fault for the economic collapse, see below.

Republicans and Big Lies:

In the American economic collapse of 2008, the GOP did the same until the Dow was dropping by hundreds of points every day and banks were seizing up because of bad loans made under the deregulation mantra of the right. Fox News the GOP propaganda outlet, Hannity told big lies and denied that the GOP had run the economy over the cliff. Until the final days when it was clear to even the most brainwashed Fox News believer.

The lies ended and reality finally did bite, and President Bush asked for a blank check:  His proposal, first unveiled six days ago, would amount to the most sweeping economic intervention by the government since the Great Depression.

Trump lies all the time, and both his supporters, 'enemies', and his own staff expect it and try to interpret what he means, or if he means anything.

Another facet of despotism is, as Orwell says above, to never fail, never take the blame, since the days of goat sacrifice in antiquity, that has been done with scapegoating.

Venezuela Scapegoating:

August 2015 : Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro pledged yesterday evening to share evidence in the coming days of the United States’ “Plan Vulture”, which he claims is currently destabilizing leftist Latin American governments through economic sabotage. 

Republicans Scapegoating:

Google search: Trump blames US economy and climate change on China.

Trumps wall and his attacks on Hispanics and Muslims also are a scapegoating ploy, to raise hate and give targets for it, and present himself as the only one who will 'take care of them'.

Venezuela's Maduro arresting, locking up opponents:

NPR 2015: Maduro is lashing out at critics. Last month, police arrested Antonio Ledezma, the opposition mayor of Caracas, for allegedly taking part in a U.S.-backed conspiracy

Trump on arresting opponents:

Trump: "Hillary will be under investigation for years".

Mobs and 'Lock her up' chants.

Venezuelan democracy under threat:

“In Venezuela, we see a majority of the population suffering and a country with so much wealth having a population that fights each day for its survival,” Schulz added in Bogota, speaking in German after talks with President Juan Manuel Santos.

United States, North Carolina under GOP rule a failing democracy:

North Carolina’s overall electoral integrity score of 58/100 for the 2016 election places us alongside authoritarian states and pseudo-democracies like Cuba, Indonesia and Sierra Leone. If it were a nation state, North Carolina would rank right in the middle of the global league table – a deeply flawed, partly free democracy that is only slightly ahead of the failed democracies that constitute much of the developing world.

Venezuelan health care system in collapse under Maduro.

Venezuelans are fleeing to Brazil for medical care, overwhelming its hospitals and morgues...link.

US Health Care under Threat from Republicans:

American hospital associations and groups and GOP governors plead to not end Obamacare or results will be dire for US healthcare.

Keep in mind, Obamacare is tied into reimbursement to hospitals and doctors for Medicare, and has created revenue from increased Medicare taxes on earners over $250,000, and a repeal of Obamacare will put Medicare funding in jeopardy, which the GOP would like to do by turning Medicare into a voucher program.

Krugman on GOP plans to gut Obamacare, Snatching Health Care Away from Millions:

So let’s refute that narrative in advance. Obamacare has, in fact, been a big success — imperfect, yes, but it has greatly improved (and saved) many lives. And all indications are that this success is sustainable, that the teething problems of health reform weren’t fatal and were well on their way to being solved at the end of 2016.

If, as seems all too likely, a health care debacle is imminent, blame must be placed where it belongs: on Donald Trump and the people who put him over the top.

Big lies, ideology trumps facts and reality, scapegoating, threatening political opponents, and giving targets for hate. These are tools of ideological despots, and it doesn't matter if the despots are left or right, the end results are the same.

Although the US is not headed to the dire straits of Venezuela, which is dependent almost completely on oil revenue, despots in charge in our government will not increase prosperity except for themselves and their backers.

They will bring disruption, uncertainty and financial and social crisis. Being despots, they will not accept accountability, they will not change, they must be removed from office.