- Huwge mistake by a TV celebrity - 8th January 2026
- Action NOT words - 8th January 2026
- Honours even - 7th January 2026
During 42 years in journalism, and 23 years with the BBC (when he was trained to use simple language, avoiding jargon) for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, choosing EXACT words has always been paramount, but this is not the case with high-profile figures today, notably Donald Trump (often mis-using the term ‘witch hunt’) who after the Venezuelan raid, mangled the English language by talking about the ‘Donroe Doctrine’.
Words are all-important, but if the most powerful man on the planet can’t get them right, what hope is there?!
Donald Trump likes wielding in ridiculous circumstances the phrase ‘witch hunt’ (which appears to be wheeled out every time someone he likes is shown to have overstepped the mark), and now a doctrine named after the SURNAME of a 19th century US President, has been grasped as his own, extended, and given a new title by using the first part of his CHRISTIAN name, together with the second bit of this surname!
So the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ becomes the ‘Donroe Doctrine’.
Whatever you think of what has happened (the Nicolas Maduro regime did steal last year’s election, and has tortured, raped, as well as murdered people), this is a RIDICULOUS use of the English language, quite apart from being unbelievably dangerous.
Let’s start with that nonsensical use of the word (or words) ‘witch hunt’.
Mr Trump of course uttered it when his close ally Jair Bolsonaro went on trial accused of plotting a military coup (losing the case, and begining a 27-year jail sentence).
This was inevitable really because Mr Trump had already posted the phrase on the internet.
On July 9 United States of America (USA) ministers were in a cabinet meeting when Mr Trump published a letter online announcing tariffs of 50 per cent on Brazilian imports, citing a “Witch Hunt that should end immediately!” (referring to the legal charge against Mr Bolsonaro).
However let us remind ourselves of the details.
On January 8 2023, after Mr Bolsonaro (often called “The Trump of the Tropics”) lost his re-election bid, thousands of protesters – clad in the canary-yellow Brazil football shirts that have become emblematic of his right-wing movement – stormed government buildings and court houses.
Rioters broke into the Presidential Palace, Congress and Supreme Court, leaving a trail of vandalism behind them, and to many it felt almost identical to January 6 2021, when supporters of Mr Trump stormed the Capitol in Washington DC, after he too failed to accept he had lost an election.
But this is FAR from the only time that the tired phrase ‘witch hunt’ has been used, and Mr Trump is seemingly a great believer in its power.
For example he said the embezzlement case against Marine Le Pen was a ‘witch hunt’, although the background is disturbing as she had been handed a five-year ban on running for office after a court found her and two dozen figures from her right wing National Rally (RN) party guilty of embezzling European Union (EU) funds.
Mr Trump also demanded all the legal cases against him be dismissed (the one about him storing top secret documents on the ballroom stage at his huge home in Florida was thrown out by a judge appointed during HIS administration!), proclaiming (naturally) that his appearance in a court room was all part of the “witch-hunt” against him.
He was convicted of falsifying business records over payments made to the porn actress Stormy Daniels to cover up their alleged affair.
Apart from calling the proceedings a “witch-hunt”, Mr Trump described the judge as a “disgrace” for refusing his legal team’s application that this was all a mistrial.
Let’s turn now to this ludicrous and dangerous ‘Donroe Doctrine’.
The original one warned foreign powers to keep out of areas deemed American spheres of influence – Central and South America.
It was named after James Monroe whose tenure as the fifth President of the USA began on March 4, 1817, and ended on March 4, 1825.
But in his interpretation, Mr Trump is trying to assert power over much of the Western Hemisphere.
Where the 19th-century doctrine warned external powers against encroaching in the Americas, Mr Trump’s version broadens the concept, and seeks not just to limit China, Russia, and Iran, but also to assert actively American primacy through a mix of military pressure, economic coercion, selective alliance-building, and Mr Trump’s personal score-settling.
In 2026, this posture will heighten the risk of policy overreach and unintended consequences.
The pattern crystallised in 2025 with strikes on alleged drug boats.
Military action in Colombia and Mexico was threatened, there were to be sanctions on Colombia’s President as well as a Brazilian Supreme Court justice, with new ones placed on Nicaragua.
Pressure was put on Panama over canal management, and there were tightened restrictions on Cuba, as well as upgraded relations with El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele in exchange for deportation co-operation
A $20 billion bailout for Argentina was timed to boost President Javier Milei’s political fortunes (Mr Trump likes him), and a pardon was granted for a former President of Honduras who had been convicted of drug trafficking by a US court (was this a ‘witch hunt’?!).
The centrepiece is Venezuela, where a high-stakes gamble has already delivered Mr Trump his headline win.
Mr Trump’s appetite in the Western Hemisphere now appears insatiable.
Just a day after snatching Maduro, Venezuela’s strongman leader, Mr Trump set his sights on his next target: Greenland.
“We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security”, the President told reporters aboard Air Force One on January 4.
The MAGA machine stepped into gear. Katie Miller, wife to the President’s influential adviser Stephen Miller, posted a map of Greenland overlaid with the star-spangled banner and a caption reading: ‘SOON’, and a day later, Mr Miller himself also weighed in.
In an interview with CNN he said that “For the United States to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the United States”.
So the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ is far worse than the old version – better to rely on US special forces than mangle and mis-use words.
That can have dangerous consequences I would suggest…
The memories of Phil’s astonishing award-winning career in journalism (when the use of accurate words was central) as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition, Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now!
Tomorrow – why for Phil it has always been massively important to look behind headlines and see what the real story is, and this is now put centre stage by major questions being raised today about how migration figures have been reported.
