I think it depends on how widely do you understand "politics" and how closely do you interact with power structures.

I was more thinking about the ideological level, as opposed to office politics, for instance. The two are not entirely distinct - social justice movements are concerned with office politics, for instance. But I think to find out more about office politics I would want to think more about something like 'the 48 laws of power' rather than knowing more about ideology.

Thinking about something is always more useful than consuming content :-/

I think I would make an exception for really good content, but generally, yes this is a good point, and since politics is so hard to think about clearly, perhaps it is especially good for rationality training.