I’m not so sure. Placing the blame at regulators would encourage people to vote for politicians that will regulate more effectively. That’s a direct link, versus hoping corporate shame trickles through to regulation.
No it won't. Nobody is going to make something like this the center of their platform, and most voters don't do nuanced appraisals of a candidate's whole platform because it's a waste of time, they go with their gut feeling about 2 or 3 big issues and whether the politician has an appealing personality. If this wasn't true then height wouldn't be so strongly correlated with political success.
Furthermore, look at a recent example of a pro-strong regulation policy: the Obama admin believed in a well run regulatory state, and the first lady led a public health campaign promoting healthier school lunches with more fruits and vegetables as well as exercise. You'd think encouraging kids to eat unprocessed food and exercise would be wholly inoffensive, but the other political party and its media surrogates treated it like the imposition of communism and complained endlessly about 'freedom' and 'waste'.
Your version is how things ought to work, and how it was more or less assumed it does work for many years, but it's based on an obsolete understanding of political markets. Ubiquitous networking has made it easy for like-minded people to find and coordinate with each other, and some people favor perverse outcomes. Approximately 30% of people are willing to suffer an economic loss in order to inflict a greater loss on their opponents, and that personality type now controls one of the country's two major political parties.
Another example would be Bloomberg as mayor of NYC. A sugar tax was attacked as an attack on the poor, minorities, overreach of government, attack on freedom to name a few. I can’t see it being supported any time soon by another politician as Bloomberg was in a position to be able self fund a campaign and be a bit more drastic in certain areas. You mention Michelle Obama who got more crap as well for trying to get kids to exercise as well.
Good point. I disliked Bloomberg as an individual (although he proves me wrong in that height isn't everything) but thought the sugar tax was a great idea. I was quite depressed by the reaction to it, because a lot of left-leaning people took umbrage at it, citing the popularity of soda among minorities and the poor. I was more into party politics at the time, and was astonished at how intense and sustained the opposition was on Democratic forum sites.
Thoughtful arguments about public health policy, corporate greed, agricultural subsidies, etc. etc. were dismissed with bullshit rhetoric about people's right to enjoy their favorite soda flavor. It was organic too, in the sense of not being astroturfed - I knew the people on the forums quite well, but they just dumped all their regular principles once they felt they were affected b¥ an issue that hit their taste buds.
Just a heads up. I could be wrong, but I believe you meant to say "encourage kids" instead of "enrage kids" lol. I was a bit confused until I worked it out.
Expanding the regulatory state is the last thing we need. Instead we should constrain the power of unelected regulators to set rules in most areas, thus decreasing the impact of regulatory capture.
If restricting sugary foods is a good idea then let the elected politicians do so directly and take the heat for it. Don't allow them to escape responsibility by delegating their authority to bureaucrats.
Naming and shaming companies, however, can make them change their strategy.