There's the reason that I think that red states don't trust the government. They see it as an instrument of their own marginalization, because they feel especially Democratic administrations have favored blacks, women, immigrants, refugees. And all of these groups, they see as getting ahead of them, as almost like line-cutters, pushing them back in line.

The surface of American life looks smooth, prosperous, peaceful. But underneath, fault-line shifts in family and work life have led us into what some have called 'advanced insecurity.

Most women work one shift at the office or factory and a 'second shift' at home.

Many women cut back what had to be done at home by redefining what the house, the marriage and, sometimes, what the child needs. One woman described a fairly common pattern: I do my half. I do half of his half, and the rest doesn't get done.

Children born of married parents in America face a higher risk of seeing them break up than children born of unmarried parents in Sweden.

As long as the "woman's work" that some men do is socially devalued, as long as it is defined as woman's work, as long as it's tacked onto a "regular" work day, men who share it are likely to develop the same jagged mouth and frazzled hair as the coffee-mug mom. The image of the new man is like the image of the supermom: it obscures the strain.

If in previous decades large historic events drew people together and oriented them toward collective action, the recent double trend toward greater choice but less security leads the young to see their lives in more individual terms. Big events collectivize. Little events atomize.