Verb
go down the tubes (third-person singular simple present goes down the tubes, present participle going down the tubes, simple past went down the tubes, past participle gone down the tubes)
(euphemistic, idiomatic, US) Synonym of go down the toilet: to fail; to degenerate rapidly.
The entire plan went down the tubes when they found they couldn't get strawberries in December.
If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side, we would be driving foreign cars. They would have let the auto industry in America go down the tubes. Debbie Wasserman Schultz