It can be argued that this it is part of the American political character because our origin story was shaped by the combination of disparate states, as in, we could have easily had colonies that sided with the British.

It got cemented due to Slavery as we basically carved up the country between slaves states and free states, and ultimately fought a civil war to deal with this bifurcation.

It’s been our long history, it defined us.

Edit: Whoops, I did the American thing again and forgot there are other countries in the Americas.