How to Prevent Civil War

There are two ways to prevent a civil war. The good way and the bad way. I obviously would prefer the good way, but I would prefer the bad way over civil war.

The Bad Way
Since the fundamental issue is a lack of empathy brought on by lack of commonalities we can fix that quite simply. Establish an oppressive authoritarian government.

This does a couple things. First, it allows the forceful suppression of apposing opinions. The government chooses what is acceptable and what is not and forces those views onto everyone. This brings commonality to the population and unifies society through the government's dictated values. Whatever they may be.

Secondly, it squelches violent interactions between groups and brings everyone peace and safety. You trade the uncertain violence of others for the consistent and even handed oppression of the state.

I don't like this way at all. However, it would work and it would be better than a civil war. An example of this in action was Iraq pre/post Saddam Hussein. He was a vicious dictator, but things were kinda stable while he was in power. We took him out and while we were a significant force their Iraq was doing alrightish. Once we left though the country has been torn apart. No part of that story is pleasant, but some bits were less worser.

The Good Way
Ah the good way, the good way is nice and pleasant and offers all the good and none of the bad. However, it is impossible.

The good way is that we need to establish a wide spread (not universal, I'm guessing 80%) agreement on a limited set of norms and standards that establish the foundation of our American society. The 20% of people who don't follow those are ok, but they can't be actively trying to break the norms either.

To do that we have to convince a large chunk of society to change their minds on some things that they most likely strongly disagree with and make them strongly agree. That is impossible. People can't get people to change that much.

It's hopeless then! We are doomed to civil war or a nasty dictatorial government... or not. There is another way of delivering on the Good way. But it isn't humanly possible. It is G-d. If there is a revival, a large major revival in our nation it would cause that shift. That change in values and behaviors amongst the population at large needed to avoid nastiness. It would present commonality that we could use to develop trust and empathy. G-d can bring about the change we need to save our nation. Ultimately that is what we need anyway, but not having a civil war is a very nice icing to that cake.

Our Part
There is a very important role for all of us to take in order to see the good way taken. We need to actively and passionately develop our relationships with G-d. We must make the time to spend with Him. We must stop letting our pride and fear get in the way of loving and serving Him. We must run away from the sins that keep us from being able to be close to Him. We must do the things He is asking us to do.

THAT is revival. It starts as a small thing. In your attitudes and actions. This thing requires all of us though. We need everyone to jump in on this. The alternatives are horrible for us and for our nation.

If you love America go love G-d.