Like I clarified, extremism in the sense of being pushed more and more strongly to one side or another, not in the traditional sense of extremism. I don't think it can be argued that there has been more of a shift towards needing to identify fully and totally with one ideology or another. While I do agree that "centrism" in the states is inherently right-leaning on the political scale, there seems to be a lot less people who fall in any kind of central view at all and it seems to be you follow the entire left or right ideology fully or you're not truly accepted as one of them. Additionally there is a huge push towards loudly professing and identifying with your views as well as not being accepting or at least cordial of people with opposing views. I'm not casting positive or negative judgement on either side on purpose and trying to be objective about the situation in this case.