Campaign ad showing lazy welfare recipient as White sparks conservative backlash

Little Rock, Ark. — A new video from Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders was standard issue Republican messaging for promoting her state's stricter rules for people on Medicaid. No more could able-bodied people lounge around while receiving taxpayer-funded healthcare, she said — they needed to work.

"Republicans don't have the balls to do this ad with 'Shaniqua' as the villain," posted Matt Walsh, a conservative writer. "Even though that would actually be an accurate portrayal of the problem at hand."

Never mind that the video was about Medicaid and not welfare, or that most Medicaid recipients in Arkansas are White. The outrage was a reminder of how old tropes are "chronically accessible" images in some voters' minds, said Ange-Marie Hancock, author of "The Politics of Disgust and the Public Identity of the 'Welfare Queen.'"

"The longer race and gendered history really points to ideas that African Americans are lazy, they don't do the right thing," she said.

The debate that streaked across social media was the latest example of how conservatives have recently wrestled with racist views. Last month, a Texas political candidate named Bo French posted a picture of nonWhite students cheering at a University of Texas football game, saying "the problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined." Some Republicans denounced French's post, while it was embraced by those who fear the country's changing demographics.

"We should never confiscate money from hard-working Arkansans to give it away to those who simply choose not to work at all," Powell told The Associated Press in an emailed statement.

The "welfare queen" trope is often used to advance restrictions on public assistance programs.

While unsuccessfully running for president in 1976, Reagan complained about a woman in Chicago who was using "80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards" to game the system. The story was embellished, but Reagan worked to reshape public assistance programs after winning the White House in 1980.

"When you deconstructed that narrative and actually tried to find the source of it ... there was no woman of color who wouldn't get a job and had multiple televisions and a Mercedes-Benz," Butler said.

"We shouldn't betray anyone because they are asking for help and they don't meet your standards," Jefferson said.

Created in 1965 as a joint federal and state health insurance program, Medicaid offers free or low-cost medical coverage to people with limited income including the elderly, children, or adults with disabilities who cannot work. Nearly 66 million people were enrolled in Medicaid as of June, according to the Medicaid.gov website.

More work requirements for some Medicaid beneficiaries kicked in across the U.S. this year under President Trump's big 2025 tax cut and policy law. A handful of Republican-led states, including Arkansas, are going beyond what the law calls for to prevent fraud including demanding more documentation if someone is too medically frail to work.