I think you can avoid involvement with the common-definition politics to a large extent, and this is in fact a part of a change being effective. I see the political world as molasses; you stick your hand too far into it, and you won't get out. You (should) want people to have a say in how the new tech impacts their lives, but you probably don't want to get sucked into partisanship and endless bickering about political ideologies. It's a waste of time that doesn't help anyone (except the print & media business).

I can't remember who said it, but I read once that developing technology is about giving politicians more options. The complicated incentive systems governing modern politics may not allow the rulers to solve some problem right now, but if you give them more options, then maybe one of them can be used. E.g. with climate change, there's no way politicians will just shut down coal plants and build nuclear ones instead. But dropping prices of renewables give them an option to achieve the same end goal more gradually.

Ultimately, my (current, always subject to change) view is that if you want to help effectively, you need to avoid touching the dysfunctional parts of modern politics as much as possible, lest they suck you in.