It would be easier to condemn this crusade if the examples of actual welfare queens weren't so infuriating. It is a phenomenon dripping with palpable entitlement, at a scale that most people are familiar with.
The myth of the "welfare queen" is an ugly racial stereotype based on a single person, and bears very little relationship to the reality on the ground.
It's not a myth, it's just that the extreme cases people are thinking of are relatively few and far between.
I'm not making any case for it being somehow common, just that when people see the genuine article, which obviously exists, it's pretty repulsive. It's not that they're all getting rich or even middle class, and you can't really get rich off this stuff, it's that they get off on getting something for nothing. "The Queen" is not the only welfare queen because New Republic wrote a story about one lady.
There are also far less repulsive, but very disappointing misuses of public welfare systems. I know a lady in my city who receives a housing benefit which could buy her a rental unit here, but she spends it on hard drugs instead. You can follow the money from these programs from the public coffers to the wallets of illicit drug dealers and traffickers. An argument could be made that paying more attention to how that benefit is paid out, would give some people a better chance of seeking treatment rather than buying more drugs.
And no, it's not based on "a single person"; it takes a profound kind of class ignorance to say something that ridiculous.
https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen