María Corina Machado just handed her Nobel Peace Prize medal to Donald Trump.Not as a joke. Not in protest. But as a tribute.
This is one of those moments when political farce curdles into moral nausea. Not because the gift is illegal—though it's utterly meaningless—but because it reveals, in distilled form, the intellectual and ethical collapse of contemporary politics.
A Nobel Peace Prize is not a trinket. Not a loyalty badge. Not a "transferable asset". It is not a Bitcoin, an NFT, or a prop in some theatre of authoritarian flattery. It is a moral judgment, anchored in reason, restraint, and personal sacrifice. To treat it otherwise is not naïveté; it is category error elevated to spectacle.
Trump, predictably, performed his usual role. Within hours, he declared that the prize had been “presented to me for the work I have done”—as if history were a hotel minibar: consume first, bill reality later.
The man who mistakes conquest for peace, coercion for leadership, and applause for legitimacy could hardly resist adorning himself with someone else’s moral honour. As Norwegian politicians rightly noted, this is the misdemeanor of a classic showoff—one who confuses possession with worth.
📌 But Trump has never pretended to understand moral limits. The deeper scandal lies with Machado.
Awarded the prize for courage against authoritarianism, she promptly instrumentalised it to sanctify power—handing a symbol of peace to a man who threatens invasion, flouts international law, and mainstreams violence as legitimate policy.
Plato warned that tyranny thrives when appearances replace truth and honour is detached from virtue. Aristotle was clearer still: honours belong to excellence, not expediency. What we witnessed was the inversion of both—a democratic dissident laundering force through symbolism, and an autocrat-in-all-but-name accepting it with pride.
Norway’s outrage is justified. Not because the prize is “damaged” in a branding sense, but because this episode gestures toward something worse: the transformation of moral institutions into political accessories.
When Nobel prizes become status symbols, when justice becomes performative, and when moral ignorance ascends as virtue, we are no longer simply in error—we are in decline.
This was not merely a gesture of gratitude. It was the canonisation of moral corruption. And moral corruption, when tolerated, becomes the most reliable ally of immoral power.
When Nobel prizes become status symbols, when justice becomes performative, and when moral ignorance ascends as virtue, we are no longer simply in error—we are in decline.
Pubblicato il 17 gennaio 2026