The move by María Corina Machado to gift the physical part of her 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Donald Trump was entirely predictable, for both involved.
For Trump, whose regime is killing American protestors on the streets as we speak, he gets to hold the physical manifestation of an award for peace that was presented in both the physical and metaphysical forms to Barack Obama, a predecessor to Trump as POTUS, and, more important to Trump, a Black man, who by dint of being a Black man, was racially undeserving.
ICYMI
- Trump authorizes capture of Venezuelan president on drug, weapons charges
- Trump running interference for U.S. oil companies in Venezuela, at what cost?
- ‘You broke it, you own it’: Venezuela action will be judged by what happens next
For Machado, her gifting the physical award to Trump is the key to her effort to get Trump’s blessing to become the power in Venezuela.
She’ll find out soon enough – probably too soon, and not for her own good – that you don’t give something to Donald Trump and expect something other than pain in return, but she shouldn’t have needed the rude awakening that is coming to come to know that.
This is the justification she gave to Fox News for the move that is destined to backfire:
“I presented the President of the United States the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, and I told him, 200 years ago, General Lafayette gave Simón Bolívar a medal with George Washington on it. Bolívar since then kept that medal for the rest of his life. Actually, when you see his portraits, you can see the medal. And it was given by General Lafayette as a sign of the brotherhood between the people of the United States and the people of Venezuela who fight for freedom against tyranny. And 200 years in history, the people of Bolívar are giving back to the heir of Washington the medal … in recognition of his unique commitment to our freedom.”
Mmm, hmmm.
This kind of thing happens all the time, throughout human history, with the leaders of protest movements.
The chase is motivated by the desire, at the outset, to do the right thing – in the case of Venezuela, removing the illegitimate Nicolas Maduro, the successor to Hugo Chavez, who himself had led a populist revolt against a democratic alliance that had been on a long period of backslide.
The backslide with Machado is happening before she even takes power, assuming that she does – and that’s not a safe assumption.
She seems to think that the way to Trump’s favor is flattery, but she will soon find out – very soon, as in, likely, days – that Trump and his oligarch handlers aren’t interested in using American might to help Venezuela get back on its feet economically.
Venezuela, to Trump and the monied elites pulling his puppet strings, is of interest purely because it sits on the largest oil reserves in the world, and they want the money that will flow from that, not for the U.S. Treasury, but for themselves.
Trump doesn’t give two shits about the interests of the people of Venezuela – for that matter, of the people of the country that somehow elected him as its president twice.
Machado just gave away her Nobel Peace Prize to a guy who will be bored with it in a day or two, and require a newer, shinier object to be the object of his affection.
In the process, she revealed herself to be like everybody else who gets within the perimeter of power.
For all the bluster of the obvious do-gooders about wanting to save the world, the do-gooders will literally give it all away for the chance to lord over others.
Support AFP
Share
Chris Graham
