I am big fan of Reinhold Niebhur and it takes time to get adapted to his thoughts since it lacks sound bytes, myopia, blind and convenient patriotism and its always bipartisan (in other words, it only feeds the intellectual "dopamine"). His premonition in 1952 about the present state of political dissonance and perceptual animosity, which was beautifully written in last lines of his book, The Irony of American History.
"If we should perish, the ruthlessness of the foe would be only the secondary cause of the disaster. The primary cause would be that the strength of a giant nation was directed by eyes too blind to see all the hazards of the struggle; and the blindness would be induced not by some accident of nature or history but by hatred and vainglory."
Here's David Brooks on Neibuhr
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