That is the cry wolf heard over and over again from actors on the political right. Venezuela has become the go to example, if not the only example, of the doom that lies ahead of the United States should it make a single step to the left. From talking head commentators, op-ed writers, and casual conservatives in conversations Venezuela rises like the specter of Bob Marley warning that the lure of socialism leads only to doom, disaster, and damnation.

Make no mistake, Venezuela is a tragic case, its people are in terrible trouble, its economy is in ruins and its politics corrupt, but whenever a single case is used repeatedly as an example that covers a full spectrum of thought then that case is disingenuous propaganda.

Setting aside for the moment that ‘socialism’ is hurled as an ill-defined pejorative as often as ‘fascist,’ and apparently covers everything from the elimination of private property to merely expanding banking regulations, the conservative critics wave the bloody shirt of Venezuela while ignoring the numerous nations that have fallen into a Mad Max anarchy.

If you are a conservative who is about to elevate Venezuela’s crisis as evidence in the disaster that the Democratic Party is bringing upon the nation then I want you to embrace as a symbol for American Conservatism Richard Spencer.

Spencer, for those who do not know, among other displays, upon Trump’s election threw the Nazi salute and shouted ‘Hail Trump!’

There are those on the left that do make the same disingenuous generalization, equating all conservative thought with Spencer and Fascism and I dismiss those arguments a pure propaganda in exactly the same manner as these ‘Look at Venezuela!’ shouts from the peanut gallery.

There is and will always be a need to be vigilant to threats from the right and from the left, evil does not reside solely on either end of the political spectrum, but the United States is neither the Weimar Republican on the verge of political collapse nor is it Venezuela.