Larry Diamond writes:

To understand the depth of Donald Trump’s betrayal of the democratic movement in Venezuela, it is necessary to appreciate the consummate courage, planning, and organization behind the opposition victory on July 28, 2024. For her valiant efforts to organize and lead the campaign for democracy, María Corina Machado was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. In her moving acceptance speech on Dec. 10, read by her daughter (due to her late arrival in Oslo from a perilous escape from Venezuela), Machado described their year of preparation to defend the victory they were confident would come:

600,000 volunteers across 30,000 polling stations; apps to scan QR codes, digital platforms, diaspora call centers. We deployed scanners, Starlink antennas, and laptops hidden inside fruit trucks to the furthest corners of Venezuela. Technology became a tool for freedom.

Secret training sessions were held at dawn in church backrooms, kitchens, and basements, using printed materials moved across Venezuela like contraband….

And then the electoral tally sheets— the famous actas, the sacred proof of the people’s will—began to appear: first by phone, then WhatsApp, then photographed, then scanned, and finally carried by hand, by mule, even by canoe.

They arrived from everywhere, an eruption of truth, because thousands of citizens risked their freedom to protect them.

The regime ordered its soldiers to stop the collection and transmission of the tally sheets. “But the soldiers disobeyed,” she explained in her speech. The conclusive proof of the opposition’s victory was posted on the internet for all to see. “The dictatorship responded with terror. 2,500 people kidnapped, disappeared, tortured. Homes marked. Entire families taken as hostages.”

This is why millions of Venezuelans outside the country—and even (daringly) many inside—joyously celebrated the news of Maduro’s arrest. Whatever its international legality, the dramatic U.S. military intervention seemed to open a pathway to the departure of the gangster regime and a transition to its democratically elected alternative.

Yet, despite her countless previous efforts to shower Donald Trump with praise and gratitude, even to dedicate her Nobel prize to him—and despite the opposition’s fervent prayers and natural assumption that when Trump finally chose to unleash the might of the American armada gathering off the Venezuelan coast, it would be to topple the dictatorial regime of Maduro and not just the man—Trump, on Saturday, stabbed the heroine of Venezuela’s democratic struggle firmly in the back. With a visibly pained Secretary Marco Rubio looking on, Trump ruled out supporting Machado (and presumably her electoral designate, González) for a leadership role in Venezuela: “I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.”

What does Donald Trump know of respect within Venezuela? What does he know of Machado’s skill in unifying a divided opposition, her tenacity in winning an impossible election, and her courage in defying and then daringly escaping a cruel dictatorship? Such facile ignorance could only flow from a narcissism consumed with resentment that it was Machado and not Trump who the Norwegian Nobel Committee rightly recognized for the Peace Prize, and an insatiable greed that cannot comprehend, much less value, something more precious than a windfall of new riches. [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports:

Two people close to the White House said the president’s lack of interest in boosting Machado, despite her recent efforts to flatter Trump, stemmed from her decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, an award the president has openly coveted.

Although Machado ultimately said she was dedicating the award to Trump, her acceptance of the prize was an “ultimate sin,” said one of the people.

“If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” this person said. [Continue reading…]