Only the shell of our republic remains. We still have states, legislative/executive/judicial branches, a Constitution/Bill of Rights, and elections. But so what?
Congress, always looking over its shoulder at the electorate, is more often than not, happy to be Obama's rubber stamp. Legislation introduced by his Senate sycophants on a Friday and voted on Monday? No problem for the World's Greatest Deliberative Body. To cross Obama is to risk jihad from his adoring media.
Our judiciary, once concerned with guilt and innocence, is now a secular, yet religious court, black-robed oracles wiser than the ancients at Delphi. Isolated from the legitimate political processes, five of them typically make law on the fly.
Our president is also a lawgiver, yet is unattached to the law he swore to uphold. Like the black-robes, via his unelected commissars, he can make law as well.
The Roman historian Tacitus wrote of the second Roman emperor: "Tiberius often as he left the Senate-House used to exclaim in Greek; "How ready these men are to be slaves."
Ouch! Great quote, one I hadn't seen before.