Maduro, of course, is completely clueless when it comes to fixing the problems with Venezuela’s economy. His response to the crisis has been to amass as much power as possible for himself, which, if successful, will only mean that he has no one else to blame for his policy failures.
Fortunately for him, he has Donald Trump on his side. Trump’s absurd comment about a military intervention in Venezuela: (a) made all of Maduro’s domestic opposition look like a bunch of imperialist stooges; (b) embarrassed all of the South American leaders who are essentially on our side in this dispute; and (c) left everyone with the (probably correct) impression that Trump sees the rest of the Western Hemisphere the same way that Putin sees Ukraine.
More work for the State Department clean-up crew! Those guys must be really tired by now.