Consevatives and Liberals are not (much) divided by values.

It is a article of faith on both the mainstream left and mainstream right that what divides conservatives and liberals is their values.

This is largely a myth.

If you talk to lots of liberals and conservatives, and read what lots of liberals and conservatives have to say, you find that the basic values are largely the same. What divides them is their opinion of the non-moral facts.

Gun rights advocates and gun control advocates generally both want public safety, but have different views about what will achieve that. Pro-lifers and pro-choicers generally agree both that you shouldn't kill babies and that women should have the right to control their own bodies if they aren't hurting anyone else, but disagree over whether the fetus is a person. Conservatives and liberals generally both think that it is wrong for police to murder a black man and wrong for police to be murdered, but disagree about the likelihood of each occurring.

Claiming that the main split is values depends on conspiracy theories that dismiss what the mass of people on the other side actually say and replacing it with a secret agenda that somehow unites the other side without them ever discussing it in mainstream venues.

But claiming that the divide is a values divide allows both sides to demonize the other rather than communicating with them. It renders a complex political situation into simple black and white, good vs. evil.