I don't understand the point they're trying to make. "The United States is the only modern civilization in the world left alone"? What does that even mean? Does he/she think that in the past all these countries were powerful civilizations all at the same time? When Rome (Italy) was powerful, Greece was already past its prime (a.k.a. it was a "shithole"). Rome was so much better than Greece that some prominent Greek people arranged to have themselves sold into temporary bondage / slavery to Romans because once they became freed from that bondage they gained Roman citizenship.

The New Kingdom of Egypt existed between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC. It overlapped a little bit with the Greek empire, which started around 1200 BC. That powerful Egyptian empire was long gone by the time of the Romans, which is how we ended up with Mark Antony, a Roman, in charge of the "shithole" eastern provinces, which included Egypt under its queen Cleopatra, a Macedonian / Greek descended from a companion of Alexander the Great. Egypt gave way to Greece which gave way to Rome.

In more recent times, Before WWI Great Britain was the world's largest empire, and by the end of WWII the reins had been handed by the new upstart, the USA. When the US empire crumbles, someone else will be the next major world power. That's just how things go. Of course the past empires look like "shitholes" whereas the current empire looks powerful. Once the US is replaced as a world power, it will look like a shithole too.