Recognizing that both sides of the political spectrum represent real concerns from real people who are demographically, geographically, and culturally different, and seeking to find practical, possible compromises between them to benefit the greatest number of people is hardly the same thing as selfish negotiation for personal gain. Both the left and the right would benefit from ignoring distracting wedge issues and cultural politics so they could solve some more important upstream structural and economic issues. The right needs to become more socialist and spend money on great public works and bureaucratic administration, and the left needs to recognize that industry and commerce have enough intrinsic social benefit so as to justify less bureaucratic quagmire. The right needs to pay teachers and IRS auditors, the left needs to pay cops and soldiers. The right needs to reform it's draconian view of the corrections system, and the left needs to recognize the failures of deinstitutionalization. The right could use less tyranny of the majority,, the left could use less tyranny of the minority. Etc etc etc. It's just the nature of a dialectic to constantly be in negotiation.

Most centrist arguments are about assigning priority and engaging in triage. It isn't a moral failure to focus on campaign finance reform rather than the age of puberty blockers, it's recognizing greater harm and limited political opportunity. The modern sentiment that there's no reasonable center comes predominantly from young people who have never lived in a culture where differing political parties could get along. That's a consequence of the radicalization of media, not a truism or innate property of politics.