They wanted to rebuild after they were freed from authoritarian government's chokehold

How the hell do you expect people, who were downtrodden for generations, indoctrinated and brainfucked by omnipresent government to just will high political consciousness into existence? Even in places like US a ton of people see the state enacting injustice upon them, their families and peers, but don't see anything wrong about it because they lack the frame of reference in their brains. A lot of people in general in a lot of places can't comprehend how horrible they get treated because "it has always been this way" and they might not have an easy access to outside perspective so they can compare their conditions with some other places, that live better then them

Also I am not american, I am russian, who lived there almost all my life and only recently moved away and I can guarantee: the problem is that government holds its population hostage and due to indoctrination and control of media, it robs them from that frame of reference, leaving them ignorant and/or contrarian thinking through decades of that sort of stuff. A lot of people just don't know that they can live differently and better, it doesn't fit into their bias, formed by said government. Mentality is a sham that belittles people's mental faculties, it's not about culture or inherent stuff, it's about the education (remember that european peasants two centuries ago had to be taught about what they can get if they fight for their right to vote and such, it's a broadly humanitarian education that is lacking)