2026: Year of the Leopard (Jackpot January #26)

Here is my shameful secret: for the last month, I have been addicted to r/leopardsatemyface.

I check it every day. Sometimes for hours at a time, tapping on each repetitive thread, reading the same comments over and over again.

For those who don’t know, ‘leopards ate my face’ is a reference to this tweet:

The joke pokes fun at people voting against their own interests because they believe the bad outcomes of bad policy could never affect them. And then it does.

So you go onto the subreddit and it’s all Trump voters whose partners or workers are being deported, or Trump voters losing their health insurance, or Trump voters having their business destroyed by tariffs. And in the comments, it is invariably a bunch of lefties gloating. Always lefties gloating.

My first reaction is to be appalled at everyone. I understand that the MAGA lot have never ever shown humility, contrition, or adjusted their worldview to fit the facts. I understand that they would never forgive even the tiniest wrong (or perceived wrong). And I don’t care about whether or not a bunch of Reddit anons are ‘making the left look bad.’

No, my concern strikes at something a little more fundamental. I simply worry that we will never escape the cycle of cruelty. Regardless of what someone said, did, or who they voted for, it feels a little wrong to cheer their family getting separated or their livelihood collapsing, doesn’t it? I know if the tables were turned they’d be gloating, but still… right?

At least that’s what I’d like to think. The above argument describes some of what I feel, but if I truly felt that way then I wouldn’t be checking the subreddit so much. The truth is I’m getting the same high as the commenters. I’m actually worse; I’m acting superior to the people acting superior. I try to avoid it, I try everything, run in circles and hide from the fact that it makes me feel good about myself in exactly the way I apparently disapprove of.

Maybe there’s no way to interact with others politically anymore. Maybe hierarchy has been so drilled into us over such a long time that every relationship is unequal now. If it is all a zero-sum game, then I guess all bets are off.

In less than a month, the Trump administration has carved up the finest American faces at daily banquets. I cannot think of an equivalent sense of political betrayal in my lifetime. The president is a coward, a bully, and a fool. It feels good to imagine more people are finally waking up to that fact.

But not according to r/leopardsatemyface. As well as schadenfreude, another defining characteristic of the community is pessimism about the (conservative) capacity for change. Even in the most contrite, humble, angry, or resolute original posts, the comments insist that the Republican voters will forget about it in a week.

They have good reason to believe this. Trump’s timeline of his ‘career-ending’ moments is longer than his actual political career. If you can call ranting about immigrants and mocking the disabled onstage for years a career, anyway. But something feels different this time.

There are, then, two sides to my obsession. One is the sickly smugness that washes over me in a shower of shame. But the other is the genuine hope for a change of heart. The precursor to the whole r/LAMF thing goes back years; I checked Trump’s approval rating nearly every day throughout his first presidency. Despite everything, I still believe that everyone is capable of empathy and compassion, and that they can live a life centred around kindness and not anger. I guess I spend most days searching for any evidence I can.

I leave you with a couple of genuinely encouraging things. One is the latest (at time of writing) episode of ‘A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein.’ Matt and his guest host, June, interview former conservative activist and Elon baby-mama Ashley St Clair and they go hard on her. She shows contrition and a genuine desire for reparations, and both of them take her at her word and commit to building on what they now have in common. It’s beautiful; coalition building in action.

The second thing is this comment: