This example will get trotted all over, but it's still what this discussion reminds me of: Survivor.
One season (an older one, haven't watched it in the last 5-ish years) there was a case of where an alliance had virtually all the power, and they literally told people "if you're not working very hard, we'll just vote you out next" and that's what actually happened. They had the majority of the votes (people), but the minority was doing most of the work around camp to keep them fed, watered, etc, because they wanted to stay in the game on the hope of the alliance crumbling and them coming through. Now unfortunately I don't remember what ultimately happened in that season, but the parallel is there: those with more numbers trump those actually doing the work to keep everybody afloat.
Do I think this is directly applicable to western democracies? No, but it bears keeping in mind. I don't think it's as drastic as that in numbers, but I do think it's a significant proportion of welfare-state supporters that are afraid of losing their benefits that they aren't working for. Not that they're not working, but that they're getting more from the government than they're putting in by a drastic amount.