ride the tiger

Language: en

Meaning: (idiomatic)Tomaintaincontrolover somethingaggressiveanddangerous.2012,Sean McMeekin,The Berlin-Baghdad Express, page258:The Germans hadridden the tigerof Islamic rage and resentment a long way – across the Red Sea into Eritrea and Somalia, into the inner sanctum of the Arabian desert, then winding through Mesopotamia, Persia and Afghanistan[…]2014, Nicholas Tarling,Britain and Sihanouk's Cambodia, page41:He hasridden the tigerwith some skill. But the tiger is growing up slowly and Cambodia will find it more and more difficult to follow Communist policies abroad while keeping Communism down at home.2025June 9, Gaby Hinsliff, “Trump has unleashed something terrifying in the US – that even he may be powerless to control”, inThe Guardian‎[1],→ISSN:You can’tride the tiger. That’s the lesson here: once populism has grasped the levers of power, even the richest man in the world cannot be sure of exploiting it for his own ends, or imposing his own agenda on the chaos.

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