why are Americans so divided?

For this week I want us to focus on the topic of what can best be described as the language of political science. by focusing on assumptions and variables and we can do this by taking on a question much on the minds of Americans today why are Americans so divided? For sake of argument lets take the assumption (an idea taken as fact or truth) that Americans are significantly divided today politically (although are we more divided than ever before is debatable) and our task is to understand why that is. Our dependent variable (what we want to explain) is the current deep divisions in American politics/society today. There are many ways to think about divisions and you can examine that on any number of measures that are of interest to you. The debate and your task is to think of some potential explanations (independent variables) that you think cause this division and why they cause these divisions we are experiencing? I have posted some additional short video clips regarding this debate and a few on social science research. For the social science research they use sociology as an anchor to discuss the research methodology but it holds the same practices rules and uses of the scientific method as political scientist do and I think it is worth watching.