COMMENTARY In this season of Odyssey-mania, it's hard to ignore the frustrated Homeric wanderings of Venezuelan democracy leader María Corina Machado — and the pseudo-god who's decreeing them.
Sing to me, Muse, of the woman of many devices who exposed
the citadel of Chavista election fraud and won the Norwegian prize,
but was driven time and again off course by the resentful fury
of a false god in a white house.
Many cities she saw, and many pains she suffered,
fighting to return home and restore democracy in the land of Bolívar.
OK, I’m no Homer. But in this season of Odyssey-mania, it’s hard to marvel at his Mediterranean epic and not imagine the Caribbean — where María Corina Machado, the heroic Odysseus of Venezuelan democracy leaders, has been repeatedly thwarted in her quest to return from exile.
It’s a story we’ll call The Machadyssey.
And it could take Machado, if not democracy itself, as many years to reach Caracas again as it took Homer’s Greek to sail back to Ithaca.
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That anxiety will arise anew this weekend when democracy talks get underway in Venezuela.
They’ll be led by Jorge Rodríguez — representing Venezuela’s Chavista dictatorship, which President Donald Trump left in place when U.S. special forces captured its dictator, Nicolás Maduro, in January — and Dinorah Figuera, a respected but less commanding opposition figure who was just allowed to return from exile in Spain.
Machado has declined to take part in the negotiations, largely because she was granted no input in their structure.
But why is that the case?
Maybe Machado's next stop will be Trinidad and Tobago, where she’ll have to spend seven years listening to Calypso — the music, not the nymph.
Why has Machado been so sidelined in the democratic transition process ever since the U.S.-indicted Maduro was ousted? Why has the Trump administration blocked her homecoming in Venezuela this year while, say, blessing Figuera’s?
Why — when polls show three-fourths of Venezuelans recognize Machado as their democratic field general, especially after she engineered the stunning ballot-watchdog campaign two years ago this week that confirmed Maduro lost a presidential election to the opposition in a landslide?
There are two Homeric answers to those questions. One features the petulance of that false MAGA god in my prologue: Trump. The other involves a flaw Machado shares with Odysseus.
The Cyclops
First the petulance.
In The Odyssey, Odysseus angers Poseidon — who condemns him to wander 10 years at sea — after he blinds the god’s son, the one-eyed Cyclops, with a wooden stake.
Trump felt Machado poked him in the eye last year when she won the Nobel Peace Prize that he delusionally believed should have been his.
Machado, who’d been in hiding in Venezuela, made a brave seaborne escape to receive the medal in Norway — then later gave it to Trump at the White House as thanks for collaring Maduro.
Didn’t matter. Trump — who says he’s now “running” Venezuela and its oil — condemned her to a longer exile from her country as punishment for upstaging him, and to keep her from upstaging him again.
He’s ludicrously claimed Machado lacks support in Venezuela — and when she tried to go back last month after earthquakes there killed thousands, he ordered her plane turned around.
Machado then attempted a flight from Panama. Venezuelan officials, presumably with Trump’s OK, quickly shut down airspace into Caracas to keep her grounded.
Maybe her next stop is Trinidad and Tobago, where she’ll have to spend seven years listening to Calypso — the music, not the nymph.
But now the flaw.
We can’t forget Machado brought more than a little of this frustration on herself with her own Odyssean hubris.
No one denies her courage. But even her fans concede she’s prone to a stubborn, my-way-or-the-highway pride — especially a penchant for boycotting over bargaining — that’s checkered her successes with setbacks.
Even her gifting of the peace prize hardware to Trump — right after he’d militarily invaded her country — is widely considered a headstrong mistake.
So while Trump is certainly treating Machado unfairly, it’s understandable that those around him — like his de facto Venezuela viceroy, Secretary of State Marco Rubio — consider Figuera a better bet to broker new democratic elections with regime holdovers like Rodríguez.
Then again, say Machado backers, maybe not. Rodríguez and the Chavistas— the sinister cabal that stole the 2024 vote Maduro lost — might just devour Figuera and stall elections into oblivion.
Whatever the outcome, polls indicate Machado would decisively win a fair presidential contest.
If the resentful false god ever lets her return to Ithaca.
I mean Caracas.
