More the centrist worship of compromise,

The Great Compromiser is an example that comes to mind, a guy who's crowning achievement is negotiating still preserving and even expanding slavery to avoid a war that ended up happening anyways just a few decades later.

All he actually achieved was preventing the Union from having an even larger lead against the secessionists given that the cotton gin industrial complex hadn't come fully online to give the south the capital it later put towards betraying their fellow citizens in the name of continuing to own people.

You're cherrypicking:

Americans are split on whether Israel’s response has been excessive (50% agree, 50% disagree), Democrats are more likely to agree (62%) than Republicans (30%) and 76% say that Israel is doing what any country would do in response to a terror attack and taking of civilians hostages – a majority of Democrats (77%) and Republicans (83%) agree here. However, two in three (68%) of respondents also agree with the statement that "Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate."

TBH, even 30% of Republicans saying it's excessive is remarkable, considering the bullshit FOX has been serving up since Oct 7.

These polls record responses to specific questions. The response indicates their agreement with a specific question, and typically they cover a range of related questions so that you get a picture of sentiments on each one.

By the way, the link includes a PDF version of the non-summarized findings, which are more informative:

https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2023-11/Reuters%20Ipsos%20Israel%20Gaza%20Hamas%20War%20Topline%2011%2015%202023_0.pdf

That many people not thinking what's going on is "excessive" is a disturbing statistic of course, but that's a second discussion. I reckon it's mostly the people who aren't seeing footage from on the ground.