Sorry, genius, but you could not govern Rome without the support of the populus; even the Praetorians weren't stupid enough to try.   They kept their fingers in the wind too.   Rome didn't fall, it went broke; it could no longer provide for both the mob and the Legions after Roman Africa, Rome's breadbasket, fell to the Vandals.   You had the winning combination of crony capitalism trying to hold the African rent farmers harmless and the Roman/Ravennan power elite trying to keep the mob from ripping them to shreds by trying to provide for them with dwindling wealth.   Sounds a lot like the US today.   The Gibbons' meme is just Christian "moral failing" propaganda; the end of the Western Roman Empire was just real politic.   And f*ck you over the Oral Roberts U, stuff, you're just another arrogant leftist pr*ck.   Now your lefty "peers" will save you from this comment.