Maybe for the sake of argument the D politicians are cynically doing it purely for the sake of holding power so we don't even have to ask what the end goal is. Then why do voters want it? There are plenty of democratic voters like me who aren't direct beneficiaries of public assistance. Why do I and others like me support expanding social safety nets?

Personally it's for me it's that I think the economy is pretty brutal and random and to make the best economic choice means treating your whole life as fungible in the service of not winding up on the streets. You're supposed to just pick up and move uprooting the whole family if your local region goes into downturn probably leaving wealth behind if you did buy a house or find time to learn a new trade while also working to not starve. Personally I'm in a fairly secure position as a knowledge worker but even those jobs are subject to the whims of the larger economy. I'd like there to be an alternative to that for myself so I want to extend that grace to people who've had a worse time of it than me.

At the core it's a lot of believing that whole you can steer yourself we live in a big economy that only cares about people as much as we force it to. I think people deserve better than to just be cogs in a machine that funnels money towards people that already have it.