I would imagine a lot of political activism is entirely counter productive

I think that people usually take the way that allows them to display their personal "virtue" (i.e. loyalty to the cause) rather than the one that optimizes for what the group is trying to achieve. Which is why movements that originally tried to achieve something meaningful gradually mutate into their own strawpersons.

For example, you can start with "people should be treated equally, even if they are X", but soon you realize that saying positive things about X and negative things about non-X is what gets you perceived as a true believer -- and pointing out exceptions gets you labeled as a heretic, -- so the movement gradually changes into de facto X-supremacism.

Or you can realize that trying to be politically correct at all costs sometimes makes people say stupid things, so you start signalling your intelligence by saying politically incorrect things... and continue doing so even in situations where saying the politically incorrect things makes you stupid.

I guess most people are not aware of participating in this process; they simply do more of what is socially rewarded in their group, and less of what is socially punished, without realizing they are being pushed somewhere they originally didn't aim to be.