my personal definition of it is this: a non-essential (or classified essential, but over-the-top, exotic, extravagant, and/or inefficient for the purposes of fulfilling human need) commodity that has an unfortunate capital-T Tendency (as in, the TPRF in which it applies without fail) of being invoked in political discussions, almost always making said discussions objectively worse.
A sub-classification of treats, which I wish more people would directly invoke instead of using the broader term since it's funnier to me, is the 'adventures': escapist, less-than-nuanced fantasies that are, without fail, invoked by people to explain complex political issues.
Any additions? Disagreements? we must synthesize this before it becomes the new tankie in watered-down 'thing i dislike' applicability.
I don't think it's part of the definition that it gets trotted out in political discourse. I think that people trot out their treats in political discourse because we have been debased as a society to the point where our treats are the lens through which we judge all things.
Treats are the means by which the working class of the imperial core have been bought off. We don't organize because on some level we all know that in the current world order, we get treats, but most of the rest of the world doesn't, so even if we acknowledge that we're getting screwed by our ruling class we know that a more equitable and fair world would reduce the treats available to us, so we resist change and froth at the mouth for the opportunity to rally around the structures that we believe deliver the treats to us.
This is how I see it, too. Good comment. IMO "treats" aren't funko pops or marvel movies or vidya games. It's the fact that you can buy a bookshelf at Target for $10 because you're not paying for the exploitation of the workers or the environment.