[Ads-l] Hire a clown, expect a circus.

[Jonathan Lighter]

I've encountered this half a dozen times in recent months. AI tells me
that  it is "the title of a rock/ska song by the band Tree House Fire,
released on August 7, 2020, on their album Isolation Jams."

Google AI defines it as  "a popular idiomatic proverb meaning that if
you bring unqualified, unserious, or chaotic people into a situation,
you should not be surprised when chaos and disorder follow."

It mostly appears in recent political contexts.

Inexplicably, N finds only a single example, regrettably anonymous:

2017 _Republican Herald_ (Pottsville, Pa.) (June 25) A-13: To people
telling me that I have to like and accept President Trump, I accept it
but I don't have to like it. Hire a clown, expect a circus."

JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org