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I never thought the leopards would eat MY face

Dan Connors

"I never thought leopards would eat MY face," sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party." Adrian Bott


In the 1932 German election, a the Association for German National Jews led by Max Naumann, voted for Adolph Hitler. Within three years the group was disbanded and most of its members sent to concentration camps. Hitler had made no bones about his blaming of Jews for the nations problems, but the Jewish citizens who were wealthier or more orthodox somehow believed that only the poorer German Jews might suffer. They thought that his rhetoric was bluster that was only meant to stir up the masses.


I wondered about this tragic irony when I kept seeing the "Leopards Eating My Face" quote showing up on podcasts and online. It went viral in 2015 on Twitter and became a popular phrase that made fun of regretful voters who voted for cruel and unjust policies (and politicians) and are then were surprised when their own lives became worse as a result.


Why would someone vote for cruel, unjust, and dishonest policies? Apparently they were convinced that only the "bad" people would suffer and they were safely ensconced and protected from any bad consequences. Many would only later realize that they were affected just as badly as anyone else from the very policies they voted for. Even the most protected are eventually hurt by policies meant to benefit them. Because all economies and nations are intertwined and connected in this day and age, there is no escape from the consequences of cruelty towards others. Just ask the German Christians who eventually lost everything in World War II.


Why would people vote for and strongly support political parties that don't have their best interests at heart? Why vote for politicians who can't be trusted to keep their word? That's the million dollar question that befuddles political pundits all over the world while keeping cynical authoritarians in power.


The answer is that we all have multiple labels and allegiances, some of which conflict with each other. When they conflict, the stronger one has to win out or we end up confused as hell. Politicians can use these conflicting labels to divide and conquer. Sometimes when the one that society most recognizes, such as race or class, is seen as a net negative, people do all that they can to reject those labels and make up a new identity. Few people want to associate with being an out group. But that rarely works. The in group people know who belongs and who doesn't.


A wealthy gay man may disagree with politicians that oppose LGBT issues, but think that his wealth protects him, and he likes the idea of tax cuts. A poor white Southerner may hate that the economy is rigged against him, but his whiteness is so important of an identity that he will align with billionaires that promise to punish those of a different color. And a young woman whose religious faith tells her that abortion and contraception are evil will choose her faith over her own procreative freedom.


The more cynical politicians know all of this of course, and they astutely figure out which identities are dominant, and pander to those. Race, religion, and class are the big three, and one's identity related to those determines much about their opinions, allegiances, and votes. Things like the environment, health care, or tax rates rarely can break through when the mega-identities are set in stone. Contradicting one's tribe is almost impossible in this era, because of the many negative consequences that can come with it- ostracism, hate, and even death threats.


The best defense against tribalism is to belong to multiple tribes at once. Embrace multiple identities. That way, if one of them goes off the rails, people have others to fall back on. If the tribal identity is everything, a person loses all ability to think for themself and lives in fear and/or ignorance.


Still, it's somewhat rewarding to see what happens to those who glibly supported punishing those on the out group when they suddenly realize that they, too, were going to be affected. What goes around comes around, and karma is a bitch, though it takes much longer to catch up with those at the top.


Here's hoping that the latest round of leopards eating people's faces will wake Americans up to the fact that they've been had and lied to. Only then will they reassess their identities and think about changing their allegiances. But first they have to be willing to question things and embrace the uncomfortable truth that the world is a complicated place with no easy answers. They have to be willing to venture outside of previous information bubbles and see how the leopards were there all along.


The thread on Reddit r/Leopardsatemyface is a source of interesting postings related to this phenomenon. The 2024 presidential election has brought out a landslide of consequences to those who thought they were immune while voting for candidates who would crack down on immigrants and spending. Here is a sample.


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