Trump Failed to Fix America — Now He Claims He’ll Run Venezuela?

January 3, 2025

Donald Trump has always sold himself as the ultimate fixer. He alone could make groceries cheaper, health care better, borders secure, debt disappear, and government finally work. The pitch was simple: trust the bravado, ignore the details, and believe that force of personality could substitute for planning. Nearly a decade later, the record is clear — the talk was loud, the follow-through thin, and the consequences real.

Trump promised to lower grocery prices and the cost of living. He never did. Prices rose, supply chains were disrupted, and tariffs he championed added costs that were passed directly to consumers. He said foreign countries would pay those tariffs. Americans did.

He promised to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with something “better” and “cheaper,” always just two weeks away. The replacement never came. The law survived, weakened but intact, while millions were left in limbo over coverage and costs.

He vowed to eliminate the national debt. Instead, deficits ballooned. He promised a massive infrastructure program. What we got instead were years of “Infrastructure Week” press conferences and no comprehensive bill. He said he would drain the swamp, then staffed his administration with lobbyists, donors, and insiders, producing a steady drumbeat of ethics scandals and criminal convictions.

Even his signature promises collapsed under scrutiny. Mexico did not pay for the wall. Coal did not come roaring back. Prescription drug prices did not fall in any meaningful way. Troops were not fully brought home. His tax returns were never released. Again and again, the pattern was the same: sweeping claims, minimal execution, and an insistence that the failure was someone else’s fault.

That history matters now, because Trump is once again making the biggest claim of all. He says the United States will “run” Venezuela.

Running a country is not a slogan. It is not a press conference line or a late-night declaration. It requires a legal framework, international legitimacy, civilian governance, security planning, economic stabilization, humanitarian coordination, and an exit strategy. None of that appears to exist. What does exist is a familiar confidence that announcing control is the same as exercising it.

Americans have seen this movie before. We were told health care would be easier than anyone thought. That trade wars were easy to win. That governing was simple once the “right” person was in charge. Each time, complexity was dismissed until it asserted itself with a bill, a crisis, or a backlash.

If Trump could not fix grocery prices, health care, infrastructure, or the federal budget — problems squarely within U.S. control — the idea that he can successfully “run” a fractured, sovereign nation with deep political divisions and regional consequences should give everyone pause.

rumptrumpLeadership is not about declaring victory in advance. It is about doing the unglamorous work of planning, governing, and accepting limits. The danger is not just that this promise may fail. The danger is that, like so many before it, the failure will be denied, the costs will be externalized, and the consequences will land on everyone else.

Trump says he will fix it. He has said that before.