I don't think good sci-fi has ever been grounded in politics. It's always been grounded in ideas, and the politics come from those ideas. Writers imagine what the world might look like when the population skyrockets, or what might happen when we perfect AI, and then go through with the possible consequences of that setting. The message is a side-effect of that process, and in some sense it's up for debate by the reader. The very best sci-fi doesn't convey a message so much as pose a question.

Sci-fi grounded in the message, meanwhile, has a definite aim. Its aim is to tell the reader what the author thinks about something, like terrorism or government control or gender politics. In my view that really gimps the story into being an elaborate setup for the message, instead of being the consequences of its setting. Of course there are exceptions, as I've stated before.

And really I don't care much about the Hugos, or the Sad Puppies. Maybe I'll read the Three Body Problem, it looks pretty good. All I'm saying is, the Sad Puppies bring up a fair point that warrants consideration rather than dismissal.