The divisions between Americans began, in part, with the divisions within the Democratic party.  Hillary, and her supporters, were characterized as tools of Wall Street, nuanced positions were said to be attempts to avoid honesty.  If you were good at sound bites, you were obviously more transparent and worthy of trust.  If you measured your words, well, just another politician.  A major segment of the Democratic Party came to believe that the analysis and solutions to America's problems were straightforward and simple.  Those that disagreed should be rejected.   This was not true on the Republican side, where most contenders were competing to be the most extreme, conservative, and anti-Obama.  Today Democrats are imagining more unity in the face of Trump, but it is still the moderate centrists, or pragmatists, who are strongly rejected.  The decline of the middle is the tragedy of this year, for it is mostly in the middle that progress is negotiated.