Mr. Chávez repeatedly triumphs despite the almost unanimous hostility of Venezuela's privately owned media.
The term irony has its roots in the Greek comic character Eiron, a clever underdog who by his wit repeatedly triumphs over the boastful character Alazon.
I look for people who have repeatedly triumphed in a range of environments rather than gained fame on the back of a mania.
But the idea that language has a terrible power over the brain, and can be easily manipulated by the powerful, is in no way limited to a lunatic fringe.Those who have written about it range from Orwell through many a postmodern theorist to George Lakoff, the Berkeley-based linguist who argues that Republicans repeatedly triumph by "out-framing" Democrats.
The Telegraph's Jeremy Warner argued that a conservative vision has been the inspiration for Britain's gold rush: "For those interested in the history of ideas, there could scarcely be a more revealing example of the way individualism, with its focus on outcompeting rivals, repeatedly triumphs over collectivism".
Despite plenty of criticism from political opponents, Mr Chavez triumphed repeatedly at the ballot box and he successfully overcame a coup attempt against him in 2002.
His eight years in charge saw him repeatedly plucking triumph from apparent disaster, either through luck, as his critics averred, or through sheer resilience, as he would see it.
Failure is repeatedly relatable, whereas triumph goes down best in a single serving, such as one of those movies about unlikely bobsled heroes or plucky pint-size hockey players.
Only the rarest both triumph repeatedly and do so with the sort of style and swagger that lights up future generations as well as their own.
Jose Maria Marin, head of the Brazilian Football Confederation, has compared winning or losing this title to "heaven or hell", while the squad and coaching staff have repeatedly promised to triumph in the Maracana on 13 July.
