November 30, 2016
He may not have intended to say that Trump voters were driven by illusions, but that is effectively what he wrote. His column warned Democrats that they have to move right to get more political support:
“…some of the Trumpian (and pre-Trumpian) backlash against liberalism in white working-class communities was associated with welfare programs — disability rolls, food stamps, Medicaid — that seem to effectively underwrite worklessness at a time of social disarray. It would not require Democrats abandoning their commitment to the social safety net to foreground programs more directly linked to work and independence, and to acknowledge the problems of dependence and stagnation associated with no-strings-attached support.”
Of course, fans of reality know that the number of people getting disability benefits has fallen somewhat as the economy recovered from the downturn. The combined number of people getting workers compensation or disability has actually been falling since 2000. So if Trump voters are upset about people using disability related programs to avoid working, they have less to complain about under the liberal Obama administration than under President Bush.
There has been an increase in the number of people getting food stamps under President Obama, but it seems unlikely that benefits averaging $125 a month per person are keeping too many people out of work. The same story applies to the Medicaid expansion.
As a practical matter, if the concern is about prime-age workers (ages 25 to 54) not working, then Trump voters should have been angry at the Bush conservatives, not President Obama. The employment-to-population ratio for prime-age workers fell by 4.4 percentage points while President Bush was in the White House. It has risen by 1.2 percentage points since President Obama took office.
So it seems that Trump voters are angry about something that does not exist in the world. Apparently, they have been misinformed by their news sources, including people like Douthat.
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