If you look at the red/blue map, you find that the Democrats win not only the inner city but also the toney suburbs near the city. Republicans win the suburbs and rural areas.Always stipulating that everything is really shades of purple . . .
The Democratic Party is the party of the rich and the poor, performing a pincer on the middle class. Rich Democrats patronize the middle class and the poor. Poor Democrats accept being patronized by rich Democrats, and take out their frustrations on the middle class, calling them "rich."
The middle class defends itself via the Republican Party. And if the Republican Party doesn't understand that - see the Kemp, Jack - it fails politically.
"...If you look at the red/blue map, you find that the Democrats win not only the inner..."
once, about 45 years ago, the dems had a huge chunk of the "greatest generation" who had won the war and come home and were open to idealistic rhetoric after the flat out horror of the war years. Now, indeed, the dems have the dependant poor and the guilty (I suppose) rich...and their (the Dems) "ideals" from Hell.