"The irony of it all is that the segment of the population that has given the present administration its greatest voter support is the one hurt the most by the direction the government has taken."

It is exactly the same in Canada! The people most hurt by neo-conservative inspired legislation in the last 25 or more years here have been the very constituency who (along with the rich) most strongly supported neo-conservative policy-makers at the polls. And who are those people? They are the most poorly educated and financially disadvantaged members of the white working poor and lower middle class. They are among the people who can least afford the neo-conservative cutbacks, but in their ignorance they are supporting the very people who enact those measures...due to unreal fears of one sort or another.

In Canada, however, this constituency is a good deal smaller than in the USA and they have had far less effect on the political process.