I don't pretend to know why people voted for Trump, but I will say based on purely anecdotal evidence that an astonishing number of people who do not live in cities take "The cities are burning" as absolute gospel, and it is fed to them every single night. >

The Republicans are incredibly good at telling their base a lie that will fuel their fear, and Democrats are probably going to have to learn to fight that at both ends--demolish the lie, and understand the fear so that it can be dismantled. I wish I knew how we could do that.