Most of those cities on the less than 100k list have Dems in government as well, but imo this isn't a Dem-GOP issue and more of a "urban" versus "rural" issue - specifically these are all cities that have been left behind due to an oversized population of minorities (eg. Anchorage+Fairbanks for Native Americans, Memphis+Pine Bluffs+Monroe+Alexandria+Little Rock for African Americans, ABQ+Lubbock for Latino Americans) and severely deindustrialized (eg. Memphis, ABQ, Lubbock, Little Rock, Danville) due to bipartisan support of globalization in the 1990s and the collapse of the energy sector in the 1990s-2000s

It's not only tiresome, it's unproductive. Why it's the case is probably for a whole host of reasons - generally poor education, media, cultural.