How come BS supporters denigrate Hillary's wins in the South, as unimportant red states,

[HassleCat]

107. It's not good logic, but it's logic.

The southern states have a higher proportion of Democrats who are black, but those states almost always go to Republicans in national elections. This raises two points.

The first point is that we are messing around with racial politics. This can be good or bad, depending on how you do it. Some Democrats, most of whom would lean toward Sanders, feel we ought to back off the racial angle before we make ourselves the party that promises anything and everything to minority voters, particularly black voters in southern states, and forgets about other voters. The logic is, if you appeal too hard to southern black voters in the primary, it will be difficult to broaden your appeal in the general election. This is particularly true, the theory holds, in the southern states, where white voters will be more alienated by our candidates emphasizing the racial divide.

The second point is closely related to the first, but assumes western red state Democrats are more representative of the electorate as a whole. The idea here is that southern Democrats are more closely tied to the established party structure, more likely to go with the party favorite, less adventurous, willing to put loyalty ahead of ideals, etc. Yes, it has to do with that racial thing, but it also includes the notion that southern Democrats of all sorts are more comfortable with the tradition of a little nudge nudge, wink wink.

Yeah, there's a lot of stereotyping going on, maybe some suggestion that southern Democrats constitute some kind of coalition between illiterate black sharecroppers and white hillbilly moonshiners. Nobody would come right out and say anything like that, of course, but we all know the power of stereotypes is that they're hints and suggestions, maybe an occasional sly reference, mostly just fuzzy cultural assumptions we may not even realize we're making, or at least buying into.

The truth is that Democratic primary victories in red states are meaningful only in the primary. The candidates have to fight for primary wins any way they can, using whatever messages they believe will appeal to the most Democrats in a particular state. The sniping back and forth between the Clinton and Sanders camps is only natural, but it includes many unfounded assumptions about voters from various racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds. I wouldn't call it bigotry, exactly, but it reflects all sorts of prejudices, assumptions and stereotypes we hold against each other. It would be nice if we could stop and consider how it looks when we say one group of voters is more significant than another, but emotions get the better of us sometimes.