I submit that USA was no more divided in 1968 than it was in 1860. I also assert that if not for the selective service (the draft) none or very very little of this "social unrest" would ever have happened.

Main Stream Media exacerbated the youth and fomented civil discourse in the interest of their visceral and at that time well disguised contempt for America herself.
The MSM also had a vested interest in playing the devils part (pitting one side against the other however surreptitiously it was done).
They stood to ultimately gain more money, more power, more notoriety than they otherwise might have, in the process of doing so.

I was 17 in 1968. I did not know enough (and I knew that I didn't know enough) about the world (our world) or the war in Vietnam to make any helpful value judgment about the war itself. Furthermore I did now know enough to make a value judgment about binary alternatives and competing dogmatic sides of "Leftism vs "the Right. Fact is neither did the vast majority of those "young people" who were protesting so violently.

IMHO (then and now) I thought when those young protesters made their slogans of "peace not war" and "free love" what they really wanted was to NOT be subject to the draft and to fuck all day without taking responsibility for its potential consequential outcomes of pregnancy and the unavoidable feelings of guilt for their immoral behaviors of wanton lust and drug abuse.

One thing I did know was that the spectacle of "social unrest" was very frightening to me and that I preferred the apparent safety and security of those who were adult, responsible, productive and yes, conservative. As a young person I had vested trust in the stability and relative safety of the life and life style given me by my parents, teachers, priests.
I saw the protesters as mostly dirty, drug addled, senseless, violent and unfounded in their self righteous posturing.