No, that is the meaning of grand-parent's comment, which makes sense to me, even passively because one has be to aware the environment they move in.

Taking parent's cue of assuming lack of agency - you can even replace "politics" with "the weather", and gp's comment still makes sense, parents inverted riposte does not make sense under its own priors. We can't change the weather, but it's prudent to know which days to carry an umbrella.