They have helped. They have preserved the "inevitability" of Hillary's nomination in the minds of many Democrats. Sanders would have had a stronger case had the delegate count been closer.
Agreed; nothing says "fairness" like stacking the deck and shrugging it off after doing so.
It should be noted that "superdelegates" were implemented to (A) give extra power to states which provide actual Democratic officeholders, and (B) prevent the Democratic Party from nominating a candidate so far from the Democratic mainstream as to cause McGovern III (Mondale was McGovern II). The Democratic Party lost 49 states twice in 12 years and it wasn't THAT long ago. They have never gotten over the McGovern and Mondale debacles, and have done everything to prevent them.
In that respect, the "superdelegates" were an attempt to ensure that the Democratic nominee for President was representative of the party as a whole, and not just its leftist base groups that disproportionately vote in primaries. The Democrats are not the "big tent" they once were, but the superdelegates do put a check on a process that isn't always reflective of "the will of the people". Hillary did win more votes, more states, etc. As much as I dislike her, she deserves the Democratic nomination for President. There is no basis on which one can say otherwise.
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