These Trump-loving Kentucky voters hate taxes -- but can't survive without government programs

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/12/trump-loving-kentucky-voters-hate-taxes-cant-survive-without-government-programs/

One such voter is Daniel Lewis, who was severely injured in a car crash 15 years ago and gets by on $1,600 a month from disability insurance, along with Medicaid benefits and food stamps that help feed his wife and two children.

Lewis admitted, “Every need I have has been met,” yet he still voted for Donald Trump in 2016, calling him “the lesser of two evils.”

According to the Times, “As Americans have grown more reliant on federal programs over the last 50 years, they have increasingly embraced the Republican Party, a trend put in stark relief by President Trump’s 2016 victory.”

“Of the 10 states in which government transfers account for the largest share of income, seven voted for Mr. Trump. Speaking to the economic and social anxieties of blue-collar white voters over immigration, trade and demographic change, Mr. Trump has championed tax cuts for the well-to-do paired with benefit cuts for the struggling voters in his base,” the report continues.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/business/economy/harlan-county-republican-welfare.html

A cognitive disconnect is at play: People often don’t link benefits they rely on with the idea of government welfare. Professor Lacy’s research, for instance, suggests that ideology and identity influence how people perceive their benefits, and can outweigh their personal experience of such assistance. He finds that Democrats and African-Americans, but not whites or Republicans, were much more likely as groups to feel they were benefiting from government programs in 2012, when Mr. Obama was president, than during the George W. Bush administration in 2008.

But Harlan’s experience suggests that the steepest barrier keeping voters from embracing the government payments that help them get through the day comes from fundamental mistrust. It’s not necessarily that people here don’t understand they benefit. They fear that Washington — so distant from rural America — does not understand their plight or have their interests in mind.

The Most Conservative Counties Are the Ones That Get the Most Government Assistance


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/business/economy/harlan-county-republican-welfare.html