Way to get half of the characters to come forward and protest (4)
I believe the answer is:
demo
'protest' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'way to get half of' is the wordplay.
'way' becomes 'dem' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'to get' becomes 'go' ('go' can be a synonym of 'get').
'half of' suggests halving the letters.
'go' cut in half is 'o'.
'dem'+'o'='DEMO'
'the characters to come forward and' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for demo that I've seen before include "illustration" , "In brief, a public event as of protest under dome" , "Public protest meeting" , "Political protest" , "Tape sent to recording studio" .)