It's not really about fault though. It's happening, and it's getting worse. You're right though, I don't blame the kids, but as I said it's a product of a number of different factors. It didn't happen over night.
People are having fewer children, so they're hyper focused on the ones that they do have.
The internet and national television stations like CNN and Fox News have drastically increased the reach of information in the past three or four decades. I believe that this had a major impact on parenting because, while the world isn't necessarily any less safe, there is a perception that the world is more dangerous today. For example, are there really more pedophiles or are we just hearing about them more because news is up to the second on the web? People feel like gun violence is going up, but in reality gun violence is going down, etc.
The biggest problem, and this isn't just kids, is the complete lack of middle ground in our society today. It's really sad because Republicans and Democrats used to work together. Oregon is the amazing state that we have today because of cooperation between the two parties. Right now I see no common ground between the right and the left. It's just pure hatred and name calling. I'm right and they're wrong! This is being passed to the children and the kids are internalizing it. Part of the problem is that the issues have become social ones. Issues that most people refuse to concede. Issues like abortion, gay rights, and gun control. So when you're associating moral issues with political parties, it becomes difficult to see a middle ground with the other side.
What is being missed is that kids aren't being taught that there's two sides to every issue. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just listen to someone and maybe you can better understand why they think the way they do. I watched a video of Milo Yiannopoulos at Miami University and he had an interesting point. He said that schools are so focused on equality of gender, equality of race, equality of religion (by completely removing it), but they're completely ignoring equality of opinion. I did debate in college, and it was really enlightening. When you are forced to argue from the other point of view, it can give you a window into how/why they might feel that way. It was totally worth it and I wish more schools would force kids out of the box and get them to analyze opinions from different angles.
But they don't. They don't force kids to broaden their horizons. They feed them one line of thought, they protect them from scary things like To Kill a Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn, and they aren't preparing them for the real world.