11 July 2025
The fictional and satirical Leopards Eating Faces Party was the brainchild of Adrian Bott, who posted this tweet to Twitter on 16 October 2015.
The sentiment, in the midst of the run-up to the 2016 presidential election expressed the frustration of progressives at those who supported Republican candidates whose stated policies ran contrary to the interests of those who supporting them.
The New Yorker published this cartoon by Phil Noth on 29 August 2016, while it does not use the same words, the metaphor of the prey voting for the predator is the same:
The cartoon features sheep looking at a billboard with a picture of a wolf in a business suit and the words “I am going to eat you.” One of the sheep says, “He tells it like it is.”
After a somewhat slow build, this metaphor for voter regret, or buyer’s remorse, went viral on social media. Following the first election of Donald Trump, the subreddit /r/LeopardsAteMyFace launched on 25 March 2017, containing examples of tweets and comments from people who were surprised when the politicians they had voted for fulfilled their campaign promises and did something that negatively affected them. For instance, on 28 May 2025, this tweet from a Trump voter bemoaning a raid by US immigration authorities at his workplace was posted to the subreddit:
Jake Cowan—in Florida State University
Lost a lot of good men today. I like Trump but this isn’t what I voted for. This will absolutely kill the economy in construction. I thought he was going after gang members and criminals with warrants. Not hard working guys.
But the sentiment was not restricted to Republicans and Trump voters. Nor is it even limited to the United States, being applied to those in the United Kingdom who regretted voting for Brexit, for example. In her blog of 29 January 2019, writer Carrie Marshall used leopards eating your face to refer to trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFS):
There’s a well-known gag on Twitter: “I can’t believe leopards are eating my face!” says woman who voted for the “Leopards Eating Your Face Party”.
In the US and increasingly in the UK, self-described “radical feminists” who hate trans people are linking arms with virulently anti-women, anti-abortion, anti-LGBT groups such as the Heritage Foundation, convinced that these leopards will only eat other people’s faces.
These leopards are behind much of the anti-trans legislation US republicans are trying to force through, much of which just so happens to restrict cisgender women’s reproductive rights.
Marshall’s blog post also included Noth’s cartoon.
And the metaphor moved from the internet to traditional media in 2019, although the initial uses by traditional outlets featured the woes of Republican insiders rather than ordinary voters, a significant difference. Jill Filopovic wrote the following for CNN on 8 May 2019:
That the Trump family throws people under the bus when they become inconvenient is not news. Just ask his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Or his former fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen. Or former administration members Rex Tillerson, H. R. McMaster, and Dina Powell. Or the entire nation of Canada.
The question isn't who Trump has screwed over or fed to the wolves. It's who he hasn't. I'm sorry Winston Wolkoff feels wronged. But it's hard not to hear her complaints sound a little too much like Adrean Bott's viral tweet: "'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party."
And Michelle Goldberg wrote in the New York Times on 4 December 2020:
Since Trump’s defeat, the MAGA revolution has begun devouring its own. As it does, some conservatives are discovering the downsides of having a president who spreads malicious conspiracy theories, subverts faith in democracy and turns the denial of reality into a loyalty test. As the internet meme goes, people voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party, and now the leopards are turning on them.
While its wording refers to electoral politics, the phrase’s sentiment is not limited to that sphere. Physician Yoo Jung Kim used the phrase in reference to COVID-19 anti-vaxxers in a USA Today op-ed on 12 August 2021:
Recently, Michael Freedy, a 39-year-old Las Vegas casino employee and father of five, caught COVID-19 while on vacation. He texted his fiancé from the hospital, “I should have gotten the damn vaccine.” He later died.
Freedy’ story went viral because his text highlighted the visceral regret felt by patients on their deathbeds, especially now COVID-19 is more preventable in the United States. While many commentators expressed sympathy to his grieving family, some were vicious. A particularly vocal source of COVID-19 schadenfreude can be seen in Reddit communities such as “CovIdi”ts" and “LeopardsAteMyFace.”
In one thread, users wrote: “It started as a virus and mutated into an IQ test.” “Guy wen from being a moron to a dead moron.” “If you die of Covid because you refused to get the vaccine then I have no sympathy or pity for you.”
Sources:
Bott, Adrian (@cavalom). X.com (formerly Twitter.com), 16 October 2015.
cwhmoney555. “I Didn’t Think He was Going to Deport Those Immigrants!” Reddit.com, 29 May 2025.
Filipovic, Jill. “If You Work for Trump, Expect to Be ‘Thrown Under Bus.’” CNN Commentary, 8 May 2019. ProQuest: Wire Feed.
Goldberg, Michelle. “The MAGA Revolution Devours Its Own.” New York Times, 4 December 2020.
Kim, Yoo Jung. “Mocking Unvaccinated Is Counterproductive.” USA Today, 12 August 2021, 7A/3–4. ProQuest: Newspapers.
“Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.” Knowyourmeme.com, accessed 11 June 2025.
Marshall, Carrie. “The ‘Leopards Eating Your Face’ Party.” Bigmouth Strikes Again (blog), 29 January 2019.
Noth, Phil. “He Tells It Like It Is” (cartoon). New Yorker, 29 August 2016, 47.
Image credits:
Tweet: Adrian Bott, 2015. X.com. Fair use of copyrighted tweet to illustrate the topic under discussion.
New Yorker cartoon: Phil Noth, 2016. Fair use of copyrighted image to illustrate the topic under discussion.
Tweet: Jake Cowan, 2025. Reddit. Fair use of copyrighted Reddit post to illustrate the topic under discussion.