go along to get along

present singular third person goes along to get along · participle present going along to get along · past went along to get along · participle past gone along to get along

1. idiomaticTo conform in order to have acceptance and security.

   He also had a talent for the truth. He would tell it, regardless, a gift that did him little political good in the Army, where you had to go along to get along.

   1989, Stephen Hunter, The Day Before Midnight, →ISBN, page 55

   3 more examples

   Sezer, meanwhile, was put up by the three-part coalition that was in power as a puppet, someone who would go along to get along. But like a Supreme Court Justice who doesn't vote the way you want, he's turned into a reformer.

   2001 February 22, Andrew Finkel, Frank Pellegrini, “Can Turkey Be Plucked From Its Financial Meltdown?”, in Time

   Nobody wanted to speak out of turn. Nobody wanted to go against the prevailing wisdom. Everyone wanted to go along to get along. That’s how you got promoted in the IMF.

   2011 May 18, Brett Arends, “Strauss-Kahn? Here’s the real IMF scandal”, in Wall Street Journal MarketWatch, retrieved 07 Jun 2011

   Don invented a myth of himself, then made it a reality, and he had the stupidity—or the intelligence—to never stop believing in the myth. Lane Pryce, a go-along-to-get-along guy if ever there was one, doesn’t have that myth. All he has is the ability to give and give and give until there’s nothing more to take.

   2012 June 4, Emily VanDerWerff, “Mad Men: Commissions And Fees”, in AV Club, retrieved 27 Sep 2013