There’s a famous quote frequently mis-attributed but too good to forget.
Americans Will Always Do the Right Thing — After Exhausting All the Alternatives.
Pick almost any social topic and find that America trails the world (except for our most excellent and imperfect Revolution). And then look back and see that, yes, we’re slow; but when we finally figure it out, we change with alarming speed for such a large nation. There are many problems in the world, and in the US, and there are no guarantees of success; but, there’s a history of getting it right, eventually.
(Click on the graph for the link.)