Are "Conservative Democrats" good or bad for the Democratic Party?

[cemaphonic]

123. Good, both in the short and long term.

The more seats we hold, the more we drive the legislative agenda. And while it can be frustrating when centrist or conservative Dems hold up progressive legislation, the alternative in most cases would be a Repub that would be a guaranteed obstacle. And study after study (plus actual legislation like the ACA) has shown that our policies are more popular. With a big enough majority, we could put policies into place that actually help the struggling rural parts of America. I think a lot of the culture war stuff would dissipate pretty fast
if conservative areas saw the Democrats investing in their futures.

On a longer timeframe, there are whole swaths of America that the modern Democratic Party has just written off. Not only does this hurt in the tactical sense of losing those seats, but it also leads to politics being driven entirely by the primaries, which tends to reward the most extreme candidates. It also feeds into the us vs. them mentality that rw media has been pushing for decades, that Dems are not just political opponents, but dangerous foreign traitors that must be stopped at all cost. Dems making inroads into conservative areas would force the Republicans to moderate their politics and start campaigning and governing in good faith again, and make it easier for more to be elected.