The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!
The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!

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Sarah Huckabee Sanders makes ‘Brad’ the face of welfare abuse — conservatives revolt

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BS BULLETIN:

  • Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a campaign ad promoting work requirements for able-bodied adults receiving welfare benefits.
  • The villain is “Brad,” a fictional young White guy who spends his days playing video games, eating cheese balls and letting taxpayers pick up the tab.
  • The policy found plenty of conservative support. The choice of Brad did not — and Sanders is refusing to back down.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders wanted to make an ad about getting able-bodied adults off the couch and back to work.

Then everybody started fighting about the guy on the couch.

The Arkansas Republican released a campaign spot featuring “Brad,” a fictional young White man whose apparent life’s ambition is to master the difficult art of eating cheese balls while playing video games. “Brad has turned relaxing into a full-time profession,” Sanders says.

Her pitch is straightforward. If you’re an able-bodied adult without dependents and want taxpayers to continue supporting you, Sanders says you should have to work, train for a job or volunteer.

That’s hardly an exotic position inside the Republican Party. Arkansas has already begun rolling out work requirements for certain Medicaid beneficiaries, with the state Senate saying the policy applies to healthy adults ages 19 through 64 enrolled in the state’s Medicaid-expansion program.

The trouble wasn’t Sanders’ policy. It was Brad.

A collection of prominent conservatives erupted over the decision to portray a young White man as the poster boy for welfare abuse.

Federalist CEO Sean Davis called the underlying policy “great” but the advertisement “dishonest and insulting.” Article III Project’s Will Chamberlain called it a “massive own goal” and said Sanders should fire whoever created the ad.

Matt Walsh unloaded too, arguing that Republicans shouldn’t portray young White men — an important part of the party’s coalition — as lazy welfare freeloaders.

A Republican governor managed to make a campaign commercial about welfare work requirements and wound up with conservatives arguing about why the Republican in the commercial looks like the guy living in his mother’s basement.

Sanders saw the backlash.

And doubled down. “Some critics online don’t like my welfare work requirement ad,” she wrote Monday. Then she returned to the substance:

“If you are able-bodied you should not collect welfare simply because you choose not to work. Period.”

That did not end the argument. Davis came back for another round, accusing the campaign of mocking the wrong demographic and asking Sanders simply: “Why?”

Naturally, liberals then discovered the conservative food fight and jumped in.

Keith Olbermann mocked Republicans angry about Brad. The Bulwark’s Will Sommer highlighted the furious reaction. MeidasTouch portrayed the backlash as evidence of racial resentment inside the GOP.

And somewhere in Arkansas, fictional Brad presumably finished another bag of cheese balls while wondering how he became nationally famous.

MY QUICK TAKE

This may be the rare political ad where almost everybody on the right agrees with the policy and they’re still ready to throw the television through the window.

That takes talent.

Sanders’ message is simple enough: if you’re able-bodied and capable of working, taxpayers shouldn’t finance a permanent vacation.

Then somebody apparently walked into the creative meeting and said:

Great. Let’s make the lazy freeloader a young White male gamer named Brad.

And nobody in the room asked the question that thousands of conservatives immediately asked online:

Why Brad?

Sanders isn’t backing down, which I respect more than the traditional political response of pretending the ad accidentally uploaded itself.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

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