Interesting article, but revolutionaries such as Lenin, Mao, Hitler, Castro, and Obama do not rise to dictatorial power through reason and debate.
Anyone who thinks it cannot happen here is a fool. Anyone who thinks the situation is not already destabilized in preparation for just such an event isn’t paying attention. Remember that Marius, Sulla, and Caesar each led destabilizing dictatorships PRIOR to the irrevocable fall of the Republic under Octavian. After the years of infighting and the Civil Wars, the Roman people were actually happy to see the Republic go - in exchange for order.
You are quite correct about the vast majority of Roman citizens and (especially) Roman subjects being happy to see the Republic go bye-bye.
However, I would contend that the dictators you mention did not destabilize the Republic. In fact, each of them in his own way tried to bring stability back to a crumbling State.
I’ve read a great deal about the last century of the Republic. The closest parallel I can come to is if the world today were to be ruled by the Mafia. The aristocrats of the time fought amongst themselves for power, using the resources of the State to do so.
The Republic of the time was not a functioning political system, it was a corpse propped up by an unwillingness to recognize that it was dead or that other arrangements needed to be made.
It was Weekend at Bernies throughout the Mediterranean world. Kick the Republican can down the road another year or two, till the can blew up and the road disintegrated.
(To mix metaphors as thoroughly as possible.)