This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC 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 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 fissure between centrist and progressives is widening. In 2020, Joe Biden

won over the great majority of progressives and younger voters

from the left of 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 candidates' 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 Pramilla Jaya Paul.

She's the chair of the Progressive Caucus,

a group of about 100 legislators on the left.

Jayapal has been in Congress since 2017,

representing a district in and around the city of Seattle.

...