Si cortan las cabezas....

Question

What does this mean, idiomatically?

Si cortan las cabezas....

Answer 1

Hm, not exactly. 'cortar cabezas' or 'hacer rodar cabezas' is a generic way of saying that someone (or some people) are going to lose their job (in a company) or their post (in public office).. to pay the price for a failure, be it an unsuccessful launch of a new line of products that causes a loss of revenue, a political scandal, or whatever.

Answer 2

In my understanding it means get rid of something right from the roots or from the principal source.

For example:

When speaking about the mafia, you can say:

"primero hay que cortar las cabezas" = "first, we must get rid of the people at the very top" / "first we have to get rid of the big wigs".

Something like that I hope that's useful.