This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of W NYC Studios and the New Yorker.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick.

In every modern American political party, there's tension between its centrist tendencies

and its outer edges of things, between those who tend toward moderation and compromise,

and those who continue fighting over principle, an issue, or a resentment.

This tension has momentarily disappeared in the Republican Party where Donald Trump and his MAGA populism so dominate the party that center-right leaders like Mitt Romney have been eclipsed.

But the picture in the Democratic Party is somewhat different.

The Fisher between Centris and progressives is widening.

In 2020, Joe Biden, won over the great majority of progressives

and younger voters from the left to the party, but many of those voters now seem

to be disenchanted. And the party leadership fears

that they could sit out the 2024 election.

The war in Gaza is one issue that is driving

a particularly deep wedge.

And it's not crazy to think that this issue, along with the candidate's age,

perception of the economy and immigration, could cost Joe Biden the White House.

Now, of course it's still early days, but I wanted to see how this is playing out

in the halls of Congress, and I spoke the other day with Permilla Jayapol. She's the chair of the Progressive Caucus, a group of about a hundred legislators on the left.

Jayapol has been in Congress since 2017, representing a district in and around the city of Seattle.

Oh, you sound terrible, David, I'm sorry.

Just a little bit of a cold, I survived.

Congresswoman, you are, if anything, a political realist as well as a progressive,

...