Comment by dragonwriter

> Break that down further and you'll see it's blue cities in those red states that have the highest illiteracy rates.

Not true; in both red and blue states, its rural (usually relatively redder for the state) areas that have the highest illiteracy rates.

> Same with crime.

OTOH, with crime its true that higher population density areas (which also tend to be bluer) tend to have higher aggregate crime rates (though some important categories of crime, notably firearms homicides, reverse this.) But the fact that general crime rates do that has been recognized not merely longer than the current ideological divide between the US major parties, but longer than the existence of electoral democracy; the driving factor being density => opportunity => crime. Opportunity scales with dyadic interactions which scale asymptotically with n² (n=density). It's also worth noting that areas within states don't have the kind of Constitutional sovereignty against states that states do against the federal government; with no equivalent of the 10th Amendment protection that states have against federal encroachment. They don't generally have the power define serious crimes, or define punishment for serious crimes (they may have the power to define and punish infractions and misdemeanors), define correctional and rehabilitation policies that apply to serious offenders, etc. All those things are done at the state level. They also have very limited (because of state law) control of public health (mental and physical) policy, taxation levels and distribution, etc. So even if it was policy and not population density driving the difference in crime rates, the local areas aren't the ones in control of most of the potentially-relevant polices, the states are.