Perhaps you’re right. But, things seem to move faster these days than in Roman times, what with faster global transportation and instantaneous media to whip up the masses.
Trust me. Arrogance isn’t rational. The process will likely be faster overall. But it’s still possible that people can be as blind and arrogant as the last few true Roman Emperors and figure that while there are so few of their own kind left, they can still keep going because their arrogance says that they are better and more necessary than the others were.