英和和英

名詞

useful idiot (plural useful idiots)

1. (historical, derogatory, politics) A Communist sympathizer in Western countries, from the perspective of the political right.
   • 1948 June 21, Arnold Cortesi, “Communist Shift Is Seen In Europe”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN, archived from the original on 8 August 2025, page 14:

     L'Umanita said the Communists would give the “useful idiots” of the left-wing Socialist party the choice of merging with the Communist party or getting out.

   • 2020 August 7, Kurt Andersen, “College-Educated Professionals Are Capitalism’s Useful Idiots”, in The Atlantic‎, archived from the original on 8 August 2020:

     During the 1930s and ’40s and ’50s, the right had derided liberal writers and editors as Communists’ “useful idiots,” unwittingly doing the Communists’ propaganda work; it looks in retrospect as if, starting in the 1970s, a lot of them—of us—became capitalists’ useful idiots.

2. (derogatory, politics) One who unwittingly supports a malignant cause through naive attempts to be a force for good.
   • 2009 January 22, Alex Knepper, “Obama's cabinet appointments contradict with message”, in The Mirror (Fairfield University)‎, volume 34, number 15, page 3:

     But what should the Obama Cult do now? The man has turned off the switch on the "Hopenosis" and has revealed the "Change Brigade" for the useful idiots they were.

   • 2020 September 14, Jeffrey Goldberg, quoting Alexander Vindman, “Alexander Vindman: Trump Is Putin’s ‘Useful Idiot’”, in The Atlantic‎, archived from the original on 1 November 2020:

     “President Trump should be considered to be a useful idiot and a fellow traveler, which makes him an unwitting agent of Putin,” he says.

Further reading

• useful idiot on Wikipedia.Wikipedia