useful idiot

noun

plural useful idiots

: a naive or credulous person who can be manipulated or exploited to advance a cause or political agenda

It is one task of the KGB [in 1982] to apply its skills of secrecy and deception to projecting the Soviet party's influence. This it does through contacts with legal Communist Parties abroad, with groups sympathetic to Soviet goals, with do-gooders of the type that Lenin once described as "useful idiots" … .—

The Wall Street Journal

Examples of useful idiot in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Over 1,200 useful idiots have been charged with crimes during the January 6th insurrection, many of them receiving significant time behind bars. —

Rafael Perez, Orange County Register, 12 Apr. 2024 At its most petty and oversimplified, the fascism question became yet another way for the left to play one of its oldest parlor games: progressives accusing other progressives of being useful idiots for centrism. —

Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker, 27 Mar. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'useful idiot.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.