@techpappy can't do: upon further inspection, it looks like the ribbon is cut to size and both ends are "fattened" to jam into the black "roller" and the orange damper blade control, respectively. It's rubberized plastic so it can't be welded and it can't be glued because the break happened right at the roller (and it needs to be flexible + move frequently in 140+F heat). There is no more than 1mm of extra room inside the roller. The rest of the space is taken up by the motor drive shaft.
Quite a conundrum.