Why aren't there mass protests over the NDAA bill?

[Chathamization]

7. Voting is NOT picking a Democrat or Republican for President

Voting includes primaries, local elections, and third parties. Local primaries tend to have very low turnout and have a huge influence on what happens. We recently had a city-wide politician elected here with only 6% of the registered voters voting for him! And if you want to get involved in electoral politics, voting is probably the least you can do.

People tend to jump to direct action when they've barely scratched the surface of other ways of bringing about change. Direct action might be "sexier", but - it hasn't been used successfully recently, in the past when it was successful it was used after a ton of organizing was done and other means were exhausted, not at the beginning, and when it was used successfully it was in conjunction with many other methods. By contrast, traditional activism has shown itself to be successful when people are actually willing to organize and put forth a sustained effort for a cause (not just voting).