I think that what's actually happening is that "the center" in the US (and some other Western countries) is now so far to the right due to the moving Overton wi

I think that what's actually happening is that "the center" in the US (and some other Western countries) is now so far to the right due to the moving Overton window that to maintain a "centrist" position requires, as you say, willful blindness to various societal and economic problems. This doesn't make it "more extreme centrism"; it just means that "the center" is already flirting with what would by any other measures be the far right. ...Actually, I think there is another force at work here: many of the people who consider themselves "centrists" in the US are the same who considered themselves such 20, 30, even 40 years ago. But a) with the aforementioned moving of the Overton window, they are having to suppress increasing amounts of cognitive dissonance to continue to self-identify as centrists without recognizing that they are now well to the right of where they would have been previously, and b) with the (slightly paradoxical, only possible due to the increased polarization) simultaneous increase in awareness of the marginalization of various groups, and acknowledgment that it is neither good nor neutral to continue that marginalization, anyone advocating for either maintaining the status quo or returning to some prior state has to either openly state that they want to continue the oppression of these groups, or, again, suppress the cognitive dissonance in any of various ways. In the end, I think it's really just a long-winded way of restating the Desmond Tutu quote: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."