I think it's a bit ironic that a story that is polemic first and story second is actually less effective as polemic than a story than is story first and polemic

I think it's a bit ironic that a story that is polemic first and story second is actually less effective as polemic than a story than is story first and polemic second or third or even lower. Classic age science fiction was often polemic, but it works because the stories were prioritized above the polemic and generally decent. Of course like any genre, "polemic first" has things that occasionally transcend their genre even so, but those are also as always the exceptions, and authors really shouldn't put all their chips on being one of those exceptions. If anything the odds are probably worse than most. CC: Hollywood, Disney. You'd be better propagandists if you paid more attention, much more attention, to stories.