Better? Yes, very much so.
But, America has done some ****ty and dumb things. It's important we man up to those mistakes and don't repeat either.
Our foreign policy still needs a lot of work. The hawkish hollering (lol, bomb Iran), the avoidable slip ups (arming Syrian rebels wtf), and military adventurism (Iraq was and is a disaster) need to stop.
The colossal advances in science, engineering, technology, industry, culture/pop culture (peerless in its spread and popularity), art, and beyond rank us highly in history alongside the other influential great civilizations (past and present) of Europe, Africa, and Asia. Not to mention, the great humanitarian feats are no joke and the unprecedented wealth -- though the distribution of the latter has taken a turn for the worst in the last three decades or so. There's far more good than there is bad, though the bad has its' own special stench when we claim to be a democratic beacon of hope. Not to say that we aren't that very thing, but we fall short at times.