If the alternative is having China or Russia be the world's superpower, I'll take the US, every single time.
Maybe they were in better shape to begin with. Still, I find it quite amazing that nearly every country in the Eastern Bloc built cars and all but Albania made microcomputers.
On the other hand, Guatemala came out of the Cold War in worse shape than Cuba.
While there may be some merit to that as a positive indicator, all other things being equal, I think that you have to look more broadly.
(Which is not to say that US-allied countries universally did better than Communist Block countries that were comparable prior to the Cold War; neoliberal trade certainly has a strong core/periphery effect; I think US-aligned countries in the core -- e.g., Europe particularly -- did better than comparable Communist Bloc countries, and the results are considerably more mixed otherwise.)
Latin America was not actually aligned with the US and the First World during the Cold War era. They're only orbiting the US in the sense of being within the US sphere of influence and geography.
Much of Latin America was, as demonstrated by the 1962 OAS resolution prohibiting participation by the Government of Cuba (without actually expelling Cuba), explicitly on the basis that "adherence by any member of the Organization of American States to Marxism-Leninism is incompatible with the inter-American system and the alignment of such a government with the communist bloc breaks the unity and solidarity of the continents".
There is a vast difference in the 2 forms of government.
No, what GP means is that the US is no longer a democratic republic (which is, as the term "democracy" is generally used today, a form of "democracy", rather than an alternative to it.) The complaint GP makes does not contrast with a republic in any way, as all a Republic means is that it is a system of government where government isn't by (or exercising powers derived, at least in principle, from) a monarch.
They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. If this definition be just, the British constitution is nothing more nor less than a republic, in which the king is first magistrate. This office being hereditary, and being possessed of such ample and splendid prerogatives, is no objection to the government’s being a republic, as long as it is bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend. An empire is a despotism, and an emperor a despot, bound by no law or limitation but his own will; it is a stretch of tyranny beyond absolute monarchy. -- Novanglus, February 6, 1775
The opposite of republic is not monarchy, it is tyranny. The only way out of tyranny for the U.S. is, by definition, to restore the rule of law, which the GP seems to clamour for.
democracy: A system of government in which power is vested in the people, who rule either directly or through freely elected representatives
_Vastly_ different
And let me be clear, if any of the Western European countries (or Aus/NZ) were an option, I'd take them over Russia and China too.
If you're not American, substitute your country for "US". My point is that it's easy for you to say you'd take the US over Russia, China etc any day because it's already your country. To everyone else though it's just a foreign power threatening them with military might.
Let's look at it another way. If the US were a small country and Canada was a superpower (democratic), would I be annoyed when Canada throws its weight around? Probably, in the grand scheme of things it could be much worse.
There's no other way to describe a political entity that will bomb your village to kill one man it suspects may be somehow involved in an insurgency against its military. Not to mention all the other brutal stuff the US does.
I'm saying: you don't like dictatorships. Great, but your country is the world's own brutal dictator. It could be much worse, OK, but it could also be a lot better, if your country didn't "throw its weight around". Or its bombs. Or its army etc.
(Again, that is _if_ you're American, which I don't know).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Russia [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_China