I’m working on some persuasion ideas for avoiding a civil war. Suggestions welcome.

We don’t have any good common enemies to divert our attention. Coronavirus didn’t bring us together. Our national adversaries might pester us with fake ads, but we won’t notice them in the sea of domestic bullshit.

Maybe on Election Day Trump can announce he is releasing the UFO secrets the government has been hiding. But that would be too obvious.

We don’t have a charismatic national leader who has enough credibility and weight to cool things down by personality alone. That job would require a non-partisan superstar. We don’t have those.

It might help to create super-transparency about the government’s process to create a credible outcome. What exactly happens under every scenario? Get the public primed to debate the rules, not fight each other.

Maybe form a peace council now with equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans who are charged with persuading their own side to avoid chaos, and making sure voters know the process for resolving an ambiguous election outcome.

It would be useful to get video interviews with protest leaders to get an idea what their ideal world looks like. That would end Democrat support. Biden/Harris would have to disavow.

Another approach would be for Trump to ask for a leader he can negotiate with. That would cause a war within the protest groups as they realize they want different things

For my part, I’ll be testing a high ground persuasion reframe that has the advantage of being true and helpful: We need equality of life strategies. That’s the only solution to systemic racism that could work.