drink the Kool-Aid

v.

To become a firm believer in something; to accept an argument or philosophy wholeheartedly or blindly.

Example Citation:

One top executive named McMahon, the treasurer, was known for going around the company after he met with Skilling, Lay, and Fastow, and they directed him to do some bogus deal and say, 'Well, we've all got to go drink the Kool-Aid.'

— William Lerach, quoted in Marie Brenner, "The Enron Wars," Vanity Fair, April, 2002

Earliest Citation:

You don't follow anyone blindly, my brothers and sisters . . . . We love Marion Barry. He is the mayor . . . . But if Marion Barry disrespects us, we will cry out . . . . We will not blindly drink the Kool-Aid any longer . . . .

— Cathy Hughes, transcript from a radio call-in show as reported in "Being Stood Up by Mayor Leaves Radio Host Fuming," The Washington Post, July 17, 1987

Notes:

This phrase comes from the 1978 "Jonestown massacre" in which members of the Peoples Temple cult committed suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid (although some say the drink of choice was actually Flav-R-Aid).

Related Words:

antiskeptic

bitter blocker

disconfirmation bias

dittoheads

eat what you kill

filter bubble

put skin in the game

Categories:

Idioms

Sociology (General)

"Drink the Kool-aid" can also refer to the drinking of the LSD-spiked beverage from the mid-sixties events orchestrated by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters - refer to the "Electric Acid Kool-aid Test" by Tom Wolfe. Personally, I'd rather consume the Merry Pranksters version...Correction to my previous comment - the correct title is "Electric Kool-aid Acid Test."