Economic inequality is higher than it's ever been in the US. The reforms you're talking about largely happened in the single term of LBJ, I don't think it can be extrapolated to the "US government"

> There was a past American government that was strong enough to stamp out inequality and fight for civil rights.

this is a hilariously naive rewriting of history, the government was very reluctant to make those changes. It's thanks to popular movements that those changes were made.

That is quite a take, but I guess it's the perspective that the American education system indoctrinates.