Sometimes the Leopard Eats Its Own Face

Trump is destroying his own movement at breakneck speed.

by Jeremy Novak

If you had ever questioned whether Donald Trump was the leader of a real political movement and not just an aimless cult figurehead, it has been answered definitively by his first week in office.

If Trump was the leader of a real movement, he would nurture it and spread the word. He would want to bring in others, cultivate relationships and work to advance his agenda domestically and around the globe.

If he was a true visionary, he would notice that the shift to the populist autocratic right has been a worldwide trend, and he would spend time articulating why his vision of politics has been successful. This might include telling people about the virtues of his policies, and the why people will be better off because of them.

But instead of bringing people together to his cause and ensuring that this global populist movement gains strength, he is undermining it and turning his own allies against himself.

In what most people thought was an election for cheaper eggs and housing, it turns out that Trump thought it was for U.S. territorial expansionism, universal economic terrorism, and domestic political extortion. And that may hasten the weakening of Trump and his movement just as it has seemingly reached its zenith.

The Canada Overreach

Canada is a great example of this. The Conservative Party in Canada has been in ascension over the past several years. Their rise has been compared with the MAGA movement in the U.S. and has followed a similar trendline. American conservative leaders have aligned with Canada’s and have recently moved in lockstep on some issues, such as the Covid trucker convoys in 2022.

Apparently, Canada isn’t just a liberal bastion to our north filled with people who are more polite and civilized than us. They were becoming MAGA too. And with the current Liberal administration in free fall after Justin Trudeau’s resignation as Prime Minister, Canada’s conservatives are primed to win big in the next election cycle.

Trump could have taken advantage of this and formed a right-wing populist MAGA coalition with Canada, creating a political bloc that could be powerful enough to rule for many years. But, instead, he chose to target Canada as an adversary to be beaten and overtaken.

Trump has accused Canada of taking advantage of the U.S. (confusing a trade deficit with a “subsidy” of some kind). He has explicitly stated that Canada is an unfair trade partner and has proposed ways for the U.S. to remedy that, from enacting draconian tariffs on Canada to suggesting that Canada make its dependency on the U.S. official and become the 51st state.

But this trolling is having the effect of uniting Canada against the U.S., prompting hardline conservatives and establishment liberals to unite against the U.S. encroachment. And they have intense domestic support. A recent poll shows that 82% of Canadians think that Canada should definitely retaliate in kind against the U.S. if such tariffs should be implemented.

Popular Conservative leader and prospective Prime Minister Pierre Poilievre, largely considered a MAGA and Trump ally, stated unequivocally that he would match the U.S. “dollar for dollar” on tariffs. He also made the following statement:

“I have the strength and the smarts to stand up for this country and my message to incoming President Trump is that first and foremost, Canada will never be the 51st state of the U.S.,”

Turns out that a nationalistic populist movement will choose nationalism over like-minded globalism. Who would have thought?

The California Overreach

The recent devastating wildfires in California have raised the specter of blatant political extortion as a mainstream governing tool. Trump has been ultra-critical of the state and local response to the cataclysmic event, which is to be expected from him towards any entity controlled by Democrats. But he took it several steps further and proposed conditioning federal disaster to sweeping policy changes, such as state election laws.

Withholding aid from an area in great need because of their politics would be a new radical precedent. A federal government that takes advantage of its own citizens suffering in order to enact a political agenda is morally and ethically reprehensible.

But it would be red meat to the MAGA base. They would get to show California who’s boss. They would own the libs. They would bring blue state California to its knees and show the world that Democrats are incompetent woke imbeciles, crippled by the bureaucratic morass of their own creation.

But the problem with this approach, outside the obvious human considerations of ethics and morals, is that California is home to over 5 million registered Republicans, more than the populations of several states. Over 6 million Californians voted for Trump in the 2024 election. Those Republicans might love the idea of strong-arming California to enact their preferred policies, but likely not at the expense of their own health and wellness.

California Republican politicians have been forced into the uncomfortable position of pushing back against their party leader while defending their constituents’ right to federal aid. Many of these are U.S. House Representatives that narrowly won in competitive swing districts. It seems likely that this rhetoric alone could swing these districts back into Democratic hands in the 2026 midterms, which would essentially guarantee Democrats take control of the House. This would ensure a weaker Trump Administration in his last two years in power.

But not only that, an obscure movement for California to secede from the United Staes is in the spotlight thanks to this treatment. On Thursday, January 24, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber announced that a proposed measure to explore secession has been approved for signature gathering. If they can get a bit over 500,000 signatures by July, then a commission to study secession would be created and in 2028 a question would be added to the ballot asking if California should become a free and independent country.

If Trump and the Republican Party want to continue to denigrate and humiliate the state with a GDP per capita that is larger than any country in the world, then this signature effort and ballot measure may have shocking results. Instead of spreading the MAGA love, by instituting retribution tactics to a state that disproportionately supports the U.S. economy, Trump is ensuring a backlash that stunts the domestic growth of his own agenda.

The Europe Overreach

One of the more curious aspects of Trump’s proposed policies as leader of the free world is the expansion of U.S. territory into the Arctic through Greenland. Greenland was never mentioned during Trump’s presidential campaign. Most MAGA voters probably couldn’t locate Greenland on a map. But here we are with our current government exploring the possibility of acquiring Greenland.

But it’s gone beyond just “acquiring” Greenland. Greenland is owned by Denmark. Not surprisingly, Denmark doesn’t want to sell Greenland. And the U.S. is apparently threatening to simply take Greenland—by force, if necessary.

In a recent phone call with the Danish Prime Minister, Trump was confrontational and menacing after having a sale proposal turned down. This has “freaked out” Danish officials, and they are now “in crisis mode”.

This would have ramifications beyond Greenland and Denmark. If this comes to fruition, then any European ally could be at risk, as the U.S. will have demonstrated that if they want something bad enough, they’ll take it, even if from a close military ally.

The result would be a united front against the U.S. even among the European right-wing. Any goodwill that Trump may have garnered among like-minded political movements in these countries would dissipate rather quickly if faced with their own country’s demise.

Trump is Undermining his own Worldwide Movement

In these ways, Trump is undermining his own movement. If he was interested in his political movement spreading, he wouldn’t threaten the very people that can spread it. He is creating a united front against him and giving his own people a motivation to question their politics. If MAGA can lead to these things—exacerbating human misery, WW3-like expansionist dreams—one might ask themselves how they can keep supporting it.

We’ve all heard the saying about the leopard eating the face of the people that voted it into power. Well, sometimes the leopard is a rabid killing machine without any discernment for who or what it’s eating. In fact, it could even start eating itself if it goes mad enough.

That the situation we seem to be in now. A rabid, out of control, behemoth looking for any fresh meat anywhere to devour. The fresh meat it has found appears to be its own tail. It’s only a matter of time before it gets to its own face.

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