Insults and Dialogue in Venezuela

I'm quoted in this Bloomberg story about the upcoming dialogue between Henrique Capriles and Nicolás Maduro. It really echoes my thoughts from yesterday's blog post.

Basically, I don't think all the insults necessarily preclude dialogue. These are seasoned politicians in an extremely polarized context. Each knows the other must play to a domestic constituency. It won't be a comfortable conversation, but it can at least happen.

What I don't get is what the dialogue will be about. If it is just a sign of good will, then that's positive (Boz notes some specifics in comments in that last post). But my quote is about how it will not be easy to back off the lines in the sand that each side has drawn: "la salida" on one side, and a deepening of the revolution on the other. At some point you have to either address that directly, or dialogue descends back into monologue. Monologue is what we've got now, and it serves mostly to exacerbate the divisions.