Lex (named after Alexander) is a representation of a current age Alexander, a humans who is intelligent, driven and capable (he could balance the national budget on a napkin and fix the global economy if he wanted to) people just don’t like his methods.

If you look at Lex as Alexander, Superman is an Alien who shows up from space and is constantly trying to stop Lex from taking over the world (which he could do if not for Superman). So how moral is Superman in stopping Lex? If Superman had landed in ancient times, would he have stopped Alexander? Would he have annihilated Caesar, or Genghis, or Napoleon? Interfering in human affairs and changing the course of human history forever? The very thing his father Jor El told him not to do?

I think it’s an interesting take, to see Lex as a human being trying to achieve his potential and rule over other humans, something Lex feels is his right if he can achieve it, while an outsider is trying to stop him, based on a fake “justice in the American way” morality that never existed. Superman is an alien who thinks he’s a brainwashed farm boy who drank the Kool aid of American propaganda.