While as a northern Druid I am an ardent proponent of the Rome=America analogy, and the imperial presidency, there are some issues here. Octavian -- when he became Augustus -- could have killed anyone in Rome he wanted to, and burned the place down.   He decided to back off a little, but no one with any brains ever really tested him.   

The great problem which Octavian and everyone else had to wrestle with was the grim fact that the expansion of Rome into a colonial power, and its total reliance on African grain, completely corrupted Roman politics. The huge amounts of money that corrupted the political system and made the rich obscenely rich was a structural problem no one could dea with -- change the name from grain to oil, and you have the exact same problem.

yours,

Peter T.