For decades, Republicans have promoted the stereotype of the shiftless and unscrupulous poor person — along with its quasi-mythical counterpart, the self-made businessman who bootstrapped his way out of poverty — to justify their reactionary economic project. That project, which is driven by the dual aims of dismantling the “welfare state” and slashing taxes for the rich, has never been particularly popular with voters on its own terms. Thus, conservatives have long cloaked it in populist rhetoric and presented it in terms that obscure class lines and turn working people against one another. Every time Republicans have tried to chip away at the safety net or shower the rich with tax breaks, they have invariably deployed the familiar tropes of the idle welfare recipient and the industrious “job creators” who owe all their success to a superior work ethic.

It’s no surprise, then, that Republicans have fallen back on the old playbook to defend their widely unpopular reconciliation bill. In the months leading up to the passage of the “big, beautiful bill,” Trump and congressional Republicans worked hard to spin it as “pro-worker” and “pro-family” legislation, despite the fact that it includes the biggest rollback of the social safety net in a generation. It is also forecasted to leave millions of Americans without health insurance or critical food assistance in the very near future.

On top of their usual xenophobic drivel, Republicans have dusted off the well-worn myth of the lazy moocher living off of public largesse. Fifty years after Ronald Reagan helped popularize the racialized myth of the “welfare queen,” Republicans have updated the avatar of the undeserving for the digital age. “You don’t want able-bodied workers on a program that is intended … for single mothers with two small children who is just trying to make it,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. “That’s what Medicaid is for, not for 29-year-old males sitting on their couches playing video games.”