The Roman Empire Redux?

I had a job for awhile just before I retired that allowed me to listen to podcasts during the day as I drove. During that time I discovered Richard Millers series on the Roman Empire that covered, as I recall something like seven hundred plus years of history. Of course the bulk of that time period was devoted to the creation and building of the Empire, it was only at the end of that time when it all started to go to hell. As time went by they had some really good emperors and some real stinkers, when they had a stinker they sometimes dealt with them by simply killing them, we of course don’t do that these days. The one in charge in Rome when it finally died was famous for his fiddling instead of doing his job, which is where the old saying came from, you remember Nero from your history class, right? I’m not saying the US is like Rome, but someone is trying to build a large, unnecessary monument (wall) to himself and playing golf constantly (fiddling). When things get too lopsided the poor always wind up eating the rich. Will democracy be saved?