The urban/exurban divide is strong. Trump followers clearly believe they have the right to demonstrate violently in city centers (where they don’t live), even though we would never expect left/liberals to demonstrate violently in the exurbs. Odd contrast. https://twitter.com/bymikebaker/status/1299908467457622016

In the US right now:

1. A perception of wealthy, elite cities that is partly backed up by reality of recent urban investment
&
2. The reality of persistent, deep urban poverty

Trump ppl—framing themselves as “forgotten”—only see the first. Media & politics largely follows

It creates a weird situation where it’s fine in the public discourse to talk about “elite, out of touch cities” & flyover country even as urban poverty is devastating in many cities & White exurban Americans are better off than minority peers.

As a sidenote, it is interesting that despite cities in the COVID context being described as “dead” & six decades of supposed downtown decline, here we are, fighting out our political views on downtown streets. I suppose there’s nowhere else