Part of the huge animosity we've seen over the past decade has been a result of people in power pushing too hard to move that pendulum far from the center where it truly belongs.

I don't think you'd be too surprised to hear that your idea and mine of where this "center" is probably varies considerably.

"Movement to the middle?" Where did things ever seriously move in the other direction? The supposed massive deregulation of recent years is largely mythical. As just one example of many, somewhere along the line government ownership of the health care system has become a "mainstream" idea. Citizens today meekly put up with nanny-state controls over their personal lives that would have had their ancestors marching on city hall. Maybe liberals stay out of our "bedrooms," but anyplace else you go, there they are.

The current definition of political compromise: Conservatives become more like liberals, and liberals become more like liberals.

I have seen the Left publicly avoid a few politically-unpopular "progressive" goals while they have insufficient political power (gun control is one example). But I know of none of these issues that have been abandoned.

The idea of "conservative/libertarian control" is an oxymoron. Unfortunately, not even many conservatives understand that nowadays.