Stop Reacting. Start Posturing.
- Mom At Arms
- 20 hours ago
- 9 min read
WARNING: A Mini Playbook for Strategic Activism, by Jill S. McDaniel, aka Mom-At-Arms... who knows how to read and research, has a background in marketing and business psychology, and has been in activism longer than most of these influencers you see on IG and TikyTok. Not to mention, if many of you in the 2A World recall, I also helped YOU become "noticed." Please refer back to your DMs before you read further. Cause this one might have ya tucking your tail.
Here's a hard truth the 2A community needs to hear:
We don’t have a passion problem.
We have a positioning problem.
WE SUCK AT IT.
If you follow me on the socials or even take time to read the things I write about in general, I've been beating this horse for almost eight years, now... CALLING OUT THE 2A COMMUNITY on this very thing. BTW, the poor horse aint dead, y'all. It wants to be, though, because I'm not just beating it for the purpose of the information to get learned and spread... I'm trying to get it off the damn merry-go-round of regurgitating the same stuff, over and over again, THAT THE 2A COMMUNITY CONTINUES TO DO AND IT DOES NOT WORK! And I'm going to continue to speak out about it, whether you like my approach/delivery or not... because 1. My home state is at risk and 2. Albert Einstein said doing the same thing over and over is a sign of insanity and y'all are ridiculous if you think I'm going to baby you. Kiss my grits! Either learn or move on!
I know what you're doing right now, too, and stop it. You wipe those tears on your shirt sleeve and blow your nose in your hand like the beast you try to present yourself as. Suck it up. Facts don't care about yo feels. I'm not talking about yo mama. I'm talking about how WE, as the 2A Community, SUCK AT COUNTERING OUR OPPOSITION.
Let's also clear something else up: Me not supporting the thing everyone wants me to support, because of how good it makes people feel, when I know with facts, that thing does not move us forward, is not divisive. It’s not the problem.
Blindly supporting ineffective tactics is.
(Thank GOD I've never had issues with addiction, because y'all would SUCK as sponsors and supporters... just sayin...)
I mean, yeah... We care. We speak. We show up. We're such a lovely bunch...
But too often, we do it at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and in ways that don’t actually move outcomes. That’s not a lack of effort. I commend that, IMMENSELY! It IS a lack of structure, though. Meanwhile, our opposition has spent years refining how they operate. They don’t just react to headlines. They anticipate, coordinate, and apply pressure exactly where it matters. And it works!!! In many state legislatures, the majority of bills never make it out of committee at all, which means if you’re not present early in the process, you’re already behind before the broader public even knows something is happening.
Also know... it's kind of participation trophy-ish, and many of you spoke out against those, soooooo...
Posture like you own it!
Posturing is the deliberate positioning of yourself in a way that prepares you for what may happen next, rather than reacting after it happens.
For example: In law enforcement, an officer doesn’t wait for a situation to turn dangerous before thinking about where to stand. They position themselves with visibility, distance, and access in mind. They're watching hands, controlling space, and anticipating movement. That positioning alone can deter problems or allow them to respond effectively if something escalates.
Posturing in activism works the same way. It’s not about reacting when something happens. It’s about placing yourself where influence happens before it does.
Posturing in activism is about alignment between timing, location, and action. Most people think showing up is enough, but it isn’t. Showing up only matters if you are showing up in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing. Research on civic engagement consistently shows that direct, in-person contact with legislators carries significantly more influence than mass emails or social media posts alone.
That means if they rally, we rally where visibility connects to a decision point. Like, I don't know... VCDL LOBBY DAY! When a bunch of ACTIVISTS get together and go talk to legislators, express their concerns, encourage change... and then, while those same legislators are thinking things over before they can pull their pens out, we activists all get together an have a really big rally in support of the thing we care about. YEAH!
That, my dear friends, is LEGIT ACTIVISM!
If our opposition attends hearings, we attend hearings prepared and engaged.
If they meet with legislators, we meet with legislators consistently, not just once a year.
If they organize locally, we build local networks that can actually mobilize.
Influence is not built on one big moment.
It is built on repeated, recognizable presence over time.
Moms Demand Action is afraid of me, because I have made myself known to them a lot.
This is where a principle from Guerrilla Marketing, by Jay Conrad Levinson, applies directly. If you've never read it, I highly suggest so. (It's the OG Marketer's Bible.)
The book emphasizes that success doesn’t come from having the biggest budget or the loudest voice. It comes from consistency, frequency, and strategic positioning over time. That principle alone explains why smaller, organized groups often outperform larger, disorganized ones. It’s not about how many people you have. It’s about how effectively and consistently they are deployed.
But there’s another layer that most people don’t want to confront. Counter Culture, by David Platt- if y'all are into the theological end of things- challenges the idea that belief without action means anything at all. It pushes the uncomfortable truth that if you claim to stand for something, but your actions don’t reflect it consistently, then what you actually have is preference, not conviction. That applies here whether people want to admit it or not. Saying you care about rights, safety, or freedom means very little if your involvement is occasional, reactive, or dependent on convenience.
The mistake we keep making in the 2A Community is that we treat activism like a moment, while they, Gun Control orgs, treat it like a system.
A moment is reactive and emotional, driven by whatever just happened.
A system is structured and sustained, operating whether people feel like it or not.
Lawmakers consistently prioritize input from groups they hear from repeatedly, not just during high-pressure moments.
Familiarity builds credibility.
By the time an issue is trending online, decisions are often already in motion or close to finalized. Public reaction spikes late, but influence happens early. Social media can amplify a message, but it does not replace relationship-building or coordinated action.
It also doesn’t replace something even more powerful that most people overlook: word of mouth. The reality is that most people are not tracking legislation, reading bills, or sitting in hearings. They are learning about issues, candidates, and policies through conversations with people they trust. Friends, family members, coworkers, people at church, people in their community. That is how information actually spreads at scale. Guerrilla Marketing emphasizes this clearly. Trust travels through relationships, and relationships carry messages further than any single post on social media ever will. If the only place your voice exists is online, you are missing one of the most effective channels of influence available. Real-world conversations shape perception long before people ever form strong opinions, and those conversations are happening whether you are part of them or not. THIS is how Moms Demand Action grew.
This isn’t about copying. It’s about competing.
The easiest way to understand this is through sports. Think about Duke Blue Devils vs. North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball teams, one of the most well-known rivalries in college basketball. (Another Warning: I AM A DUKIE. DIEHARD!)
Neither team is trying to become the other. They have different identities, different coaching styles, and different cultures. BUT... they study each other, prepare for each other, and match intensity, pace, and execution. If one team shows up disciplined and prepared while the other shows up emotional and reactive, the outcome is predictable. No one watches that game and says one team is copying the other. They say that team came ready to compete.
That same framework applies directly to activism. In sports, teams study film before the game ever begins. They know tendencies, patterns, and pressure points. In activism, that looks like tracking legislation early, understanding which committees matter, knowing who the key decision-makers are, and paying attention to how the opposition is moving. If you only start paying attention when something hits social media, you didn’t study the game. You walked in blind... And blind teams lose.
Teams also don’t just show up on game day and expect to perform. They put in reps. They practice consistently, building discipline over time.
In activism, those reps look like showing up to local meetings regularly, building relationships with legislators and their staff before you need something, organizing small but reliable groups at the local level, and communicating consistently instead of only when something is wrong. This directly mirrors another Guerrilla Marketing principle: frequency builds trust, and trust builds influence. It also feeds directly into word of mouth. When you are consistently present and engaged in your community, you naturally become a source of information for others. People start coming to you with questions. They repeat what you say. They carry your message into rooms you are not in. That is how movements scale without massive infrastructure.
This is also where the challenge from Counter Culture becomes unavoidable. It is easy to agree with something in principle. It is much harder to live it out in a way that requires time, effort, and consistency, especially when there is no recognition attached to it. But that is exactly where real influence is built. Not in moments of visibility, but in patterns of behavior that reflect actual commitment.
Game day, in activism, is when it’s time to execute. That looks like committee hearings, floor votes, legislative meetings, and direct engagement with decision-makers. This is not the time to figure things out. It is the time to act on what you have already prepared for. If you skipped the early stages, you don’t know what’s happening. If you didn’t build relationships, you don’t have access. If you didn’t organize, you don’t have turnout. And then people wonder why they feel ineffective. It’s not because they care less. It’s because they prepared less. And when people continuously feel pushed to show up at things they are unprepared for or timed wrong... they lose interest. That's when movements fall apart.
Timing matters just as much as effort. In sports, you don’t play the fourth quarter the same way you play the first. Pressure increases, decisions tighten, and execution becomes critical. The same applies to activism. Early stages of legislation are about positioning and influence. Mid-stages are about presence and sustained pressure. Late stages are about targeted, strategic action. Guerrilla Marketing reinforces this idea as well: you don’t dump all your effort at the end and expect results. You build momentum over time so that when the critical moment arrives, you already have leverage. Yet too often, people wait until the final stages to engage. By then, the other side has already been active the entire time. That’s not applying pressure. That’s trying to catch up.
What we’re missing right now is focus. Too much energy is spent on optics, personalities, and online disagreements.
Who has the biggest platform?
Who gets credit?
Who said what?
Meanwhile, effective groups are focused on execution. They are coordinating, showing up consistently, and applying pressure where it matters most. That’s why they are effective.
If we want to operate differently, we need to start thinking less like participants and more like coordinators. That means tracking information early instead of reacting late, building relationships before they are needed, developing local structure with reliable people, communicating clearly with actionable direction, and showing up consistently whether it is convenient or not. It also means detaching from the need for visibility.
Guerrilla Marketing makes this point clearly: the goal is results, not attention.
Counter Culture reinforces the deeper truth behind that: real commitment is proven through action, not appearance.
If the goal is to be seen, decisions will be made based on optics.
If the goal is outcome, actions will be taken where they are most effective, even if no one is watching. And if those actions are paired with strong, consistent word-of-mouth communication, your influence extends far beyond your immediate reach.
If your activism only exists when it’s visible, it isn’t activism. It’s performance.
Real influence happens through consistent presence, early engagement, strategic pressure, and the conversations that carry your message into spaces you will never personally enter. The data supports it, and the outcomes reflect it. (EVERYTHING I'm saying in this article is backed by experts.)
The question isn’t whether you care. I have never thought that someone who comes into the activism fold late or ill-equipped didn't care.
The question is whether you are positioning yourself in a way that actually makes that care count. Instead of coming in all hands and elbows, screaming, "LOOK AT ME! I CAN SPEAK 2A!"
Because showing up is not the goal.
Showing up correctly and with effectiveness is.
And if any of this triggered you to tears, please understand... I could be meaner.
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