One would have thought the COVID-19 Pandemic would have been such an event, but alas..
People are generally good at responding to acute, existential threats. We don't seem nearly as good at managing abstract ones that occur over long timescales. I just don't think we're wired to think about risk accurately in that way and, let's face it, most decision are made at an emotional, visceral level.
I should also note that, regardless of how one feels about him, two things about Bernie Sanders are that he didn’t accept any SuperPAC donations and he was very willing to put effort in to eliminating student debt and alleviating climate change. So such platforms are not unheard of.
My comment about our "wiring" is about how we are bad at estimating risks. We likely evolved to think causally rather than statistically and, when coupled with highly emotional risks, it tends to skew the accuracy of risk assessments. Climate change is not as emotionally charged as, say, terrorist attacks so it will tend to get lower priority in an individual's mind.
With a million dead and millions more financially ruined, I think it’s fair to say we didn’t prevent large scale suffering. And to be clear my issue isn’t just with direct spending - a few more stimulus checks would have been nice but wouldn’t solve the larger problem - I think we needed better consistency from the government on risk profiles and the importance of masks, as well as more mask mandates and travel restrictions, and finally better testing infrastructure. Some of that is direct spending but much isn’t.