> selling a policy is often more difficult and important than policy itself

Policy needs a villain. After all, if everyone were on the same page acting in good faith, you wouldn't need policy. The people could just start living the life they want to see.

Alcohol points to drunks, cigarettes points to those backlogging hospitals, carbon pricing points to "evil" oil companies trying to destroy the environment. Soda has tried pointing to the obese also backlogging hospitals, but, as you point out, not very successfully.

Your sweet grandmother uses social media and it makes her happy being able to see photos of her grandchildren. It is hard for the average person to find a villain in that.

This is an interesting take, and dovetails with something I have long felt: that the Soviet Union pushed to the US to be better, without that competition we've lost something.

I was about to respond to the sibling comment: I think one of the missing ingredients is "shame" (in my example: shame of being bettered by the Soviets). After all, we managed to convince people to spend quite a sum going to the moon...