Could it really have been there? Remember how the US looked back in these days: The US had to invent its "moral high ground" and chose to be against racism all of a sudden mostly because it had to justify the costs of WWII.

I am an outsider but I could imagine, that this artificially introduced moral is part of the reason why racism and other problems are still big in the US: The people generally believe that they already have the moral high ground and after all won against the evil. It is much easier to handle 800k+ refugees like Germany will do this year, when your moral self-awareness is a bit more toned down to say the least and you still think you owe the world.