Was there a period when "Consensus Buddhism"/"Buddhist Romanticism" dominated Buddhism in the West?
Chapman has drawn a circle around his own practice of Aro g'Ter, which he describes as "neither traditional nor modern" but as "terma." Everything outside that circle is "Consensus Buddhism" or infected by it. He also likes Shambhala, which he practised before the Aro sect. I live in Halifax, which is the International headquarters of Shambhala. The dominant form here is Vajra-Tantra; it totally dominates Buddhism in Atlantic Canada in numbers, wealth, teaching and practice. But I don't call it a "consensus"; I don't practice it and it has no affect on what I choose to practice. 

Chapman's thesis on Consensus Buddhism approaches conspiracy theory. He purports that there is this loosely coalesced conspiracy, led by the Dalai Lama, Jack Kornfield, and other published teachers, to make us all practice the same thing ("One Dharma"), which deliberately excludes tantric practice from that consensus, thus suppressing the practice of tantra. He offers no evidence to explain how this Consensus Buddhism dominates US practice, or that it deliberately suppresses tantric practice--not even anecdotal evidence. It's a conspiracy theory which he proffers as a way to defend his own views.