No this is the dark before that dawn. It's more like the early 1st C. B.C. - on the cusp of the reaction to all that Gracchan and Marian redistributive "socialist" politics - the rise of Sulla!
In truth, I think we're a decade away from Sulla, and a couple of generations away from Caesar.(Sulla will look a lot like Caesar - perhaps a sort of historical fore-shadowing)
In my mind, Marius and Sulla were the thesis and antithesis of the political dialectic which, ultimately, produced Caesar.
Obama indeed could be a puppet Marius, but he would need a military force loyal to him personally to be an exact analogue.
In the background, one always need to watch the equestrian moneylenders—they more than anyone else dictated the final arrangement.
Yes, it does appear that it is too late to avoid Sulla. I’m sorry I couldn’t figure out HOW to prevent the CAUSE for the need for his type. It’s the enemy within who have played Hegelian games so well (Marxists and Tranzis carrying their water) that we were no match for.