The best route to improvement of the draft, I think, is a major shift in the ratio of substance to style. The reader gets no information here, so the takeaway value is slight once admiration of your references is over. Analysis is mostly presented in the form of epigram, which is okay, but doesn't leave the reader much to do with the resulting ideas, except quote you herself the way you quote other people here.

I'm left with the feeling, after all the running and jumping, that the idea of the essay could be boiled down into one sentence, but that the resulting sentence wouldn't be very illuminating. Let's reverse the process for the next draft. Let's start with one sentence that really conveys a new idea. That could go first. Then in following paragraphs you could refer to some facts or provide some analytical description of current events that the reader could learn from, in the sense that she can say to herself, "I didn't know that until I read Schaefer." A conclusion would follow, which shows how your idea from up top could be taken further in a new direction by the reader herself, continuing the learning process. Then we would really be getting somewhere, because you told us from the beginning where we were going.