If you are told "Try to do X, and if you do I'll give you $10" and you don't succeed, meh. Not a big deal, but it's a let down. Esp. if you think about it for a while, because then it starts to bleed into the next possibility.
If you are told, "Here's $10, take it--now try to do X and if you succeed you can keep the money" it's a different matter. If you fail, you'll object, find excuses and try to blame others. First, you're having money taken away; second, its your own failure that triggered this, and people don't like blaming themselves for anything, not seriously, but I digress. But in real terms these are the same thing, right? In terms of what's going on outside, sure. But in terms of what's happening in the subject's brain, not the same.
Giving up what you feel you already possess or believe you are owed is harder than not getting something you never felt you had in the first place.
So politicians always say about things that aren't possessed, owed, or even promised that "they're trying to take this away from you." They know that'll rile up their people, make them fight for what's theirs. Things like possible increases to benefits, possible projects or programs, some right or opportunity. If they make you feel like you already own it and then don't get it it's a completely different sensation from being told it was possible but didn't happen.
The young in Britain have been told that the Brexit will take things away from them. The working poor have been told that they'd have jobs and prosperity if not for some other group that they then resent. Even if it's unclear and they can't actually explain how their naturally prosperous state (said nobody ever) has been taken away, how the young had taken away opportunities some might have enjoyed 10 years from now after they've finished school, the politicians and demagogues have produced resentment.
It's clever manipulation, but it's still manipulation.
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