Of course, if you want to explain why middle class conservatives support this position, it’s because the ideology of conservatism revolves around material succe

Of course, if you want to explain why middle class conservatives support this position, it’s because the ideology of conservatism revolves around material success being equivalent to godliness. And as god’s chosen people and his representatives on earth it is their job to punish the iniquitous, therefore it is not only the privilege but also the duty of the powerful to trample on the weak. They couch this in rhetoric involving “personal responsibility” and so forth but this is what it really boils down to. So maintaining a moral order means punishing the unworthy. This means poor people, who are assumed to be slothful, and immigrants and brown people for other reasons. They are willing to pay money to make sure that the people they have contempt for, suffer. Once you understand this all sorts of things start to make sense.