Telling young people that the world is ruled by a clique of powerful old white men who conspire to keep them oppressed must be crushing, especially if done incessantly.
A cynical part of me says: see, sowing and cultivating frustration is precisely what some politicians need to reap power. They might not gain as much power if their voters had more self-esteem.
If you're a young white man with a fighting chance of becoming one of the next generation of powerful old white men, I can understand where you might find that unnecessarily demoralizing.
But for everybody else, it's the bitter truth they nevertheless need to know. And the only way to change this is at the systemic, political level.
Would there be an Israel today if Jewish people convinced themselves that the world is forever going to hate and subjugate them and that they are powerless to change it?
They could have done so, after all, the Holocaust was an unspeakable evil. But they chose the path of constructive defiance.
Is this really the only situation where you think this is demoralizing?
Not for women or minorities who are told they will never have a chance of making it anywhere because they're not white men? Personally I think that's pretty discouraging.