The spilt was inevitable for a multi-cultural nation with a poorly written constitution.
I don't see how it could have been avoided.
As for those "family" TV series to which you alluded, you didn't find them to be cornball crap?
They're laughably campy now, I suppose, but they weren't anything that I could sit through.
I was more into the Honeymooners.
Those were more real people.
I started to use "The Honeymooners" or the "Real McCoys", or even "AMOS N' ANDY", and "Our Gang" as examples, and just as easily could have to still make my case in point.
As everything and anything on TV in America, in that era, was UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTABLE, ADMIRED, and ADORED BY US ALL- rich or poor- BLACK OR WHITE- Religious or Not- Democrat or Republican- YOUNG OR OLD- MALE OR FEMALE! Nothing on TV seemed to divide us, but rather unite us, and move our very soul!
I can remember when I used to crawl up in my daddy's lap when he would come home from work, as a very small child, and we would watch Cameron Swaze tell us the News Events of the day, and we were all Universal in our trust in what he had to say. This went on through all the Walter Cronkite days as well. This universal contentedness was reflected in American Music as well- not just in our watching TV, but also coming to us on the airwaves THROUGH RADIO!
When Motown, Herb Alpert's Mexican flavored music, the Beatles, the Boston Pops, and the Beach Boys were just as important to us as the Grand Ole' Opry! When everyone had a piece of that PIE, and we consumed it like APPLE PIE!
If anyone wants to reflect on times when things were GREAT in America, this was the epitome of when times were at it's Greatest in America.
It was a time when you could drag your own parents out to a movie, to even a wild and crazy movie of the time, like The Midnight Cowboy, and when the movie was over, and the theater curtains came down, you could look at your parents, and not just your Mom, but even your Dad had a little tear in his eye, as you all walked out together.

It was a time when we all seemed to care about the lives of others.
When we were UNITED- NOT DIVIDED! Long before Politics and Religion became BLOOD SPORTS and TRIBAL WARFARE!
Watch this to the end and see if you can hold back that little tear- Skip over the brief guitar lesson in the middle, if you like, but be sure to watch the ending, as you read the lyrics, that will capture your human and emotional dignation! Perhaps, it will restore some of it- if it has been lost for a while now!