Fisking That Salon Article.

1 — Staggering Increase in the Cost of Elections, with Dubious Campaign Funding Sources:

This is nothing new, and the purposes for which the money is put to is radically different in the modern USA than in the Ancient Roman republic.

2 — Politics as the Road to Personal Wealth:

This pretty much has always been the case with career politicians in the USA. And pretty much anywhere else on the planet.

3 — Continuous War: A national state of security arises, distracting attention from domestic challenges with foreign wars. Similar to the late Roman Republic, the US – for the past 100 years — has either been fighting a war, recovering from a war, or preparing for a new war: WW I (1917-18), WW II (1941-1945), Cold War (1947-1991), Korean War (1950-1953), Vietnam (1953-1975), Gulf War (1990-1991), Afghanistan (2001-ongoing), and Iraq (2003-2011). And, this list is far from complete.

If you want peace, prepare for war. However, this is the usual cherry picking of historical dates to, as AVI notes, prove whatever they want. If you take the previous years, There is the China intervention (1900), Spanish American War (1898), Philipine insurrection, (1899-1902), The taking of the Chosun Forts (1879), The opening of Japan (1853) (which everybody forgets was pretty much done at gunpoint, although no guns had to be fired)

The various Indian wars: 
Chickamauga Wars (1776–1794)
Northwest Indian War (1785–1795)
Nickajack Expedition (1794)
Sabine Expedition (1806)
War of 1812 (1811–1815)
Tecumseh's War (1811–1813)
Creek War (1813–1814)
Peoria War (1813)
First Seminole War (1817–1818)
Winnebago War (1827)
Black Hawk War (1832)
Creek War of 1836 (1836)
Florida–Georgia Border War (1836)
Second Seminole War (1835–1842)
Arikara War (1823)
Osage Indian War (1837)
Texas–Indian Wars (1836–1877)
Comanche Wars (1836–1877)
Antelope Hills Expedition (1858)
Comanche War (1868–1874)
Red River War (1874–1875)
Buffalo Hunters' War (1876–1877)
Cayuse War (1848–1855)
Apache Wars (1849–1924)
Jicarilla War (1849–1855)
Chiricahua Wars (1860–1886)
Tonto War (1871–1875)
Renegade Period (1879–1924)
Victorio's War (1879–1880)
Geronimo's War (1881–1886)
Yuma War (1850–1853)
Ute Wars (1850–1923)
Provo War (1850)
Walker War (1853–1854)
Tintic War (1856)
Black Hawk's War (1865–1872)
White River War (1879)
Ute War (1887)
Bluff War (1914–1915)
Bluff Skirmish (1921)
Posey War (1923)
Sioux Wars (1854–1891)
First Sioux War (1854)
Dakota War (1862)
Colorado War (1863–1865)
Powder River War (1865)
Red Cloud's War (1866–1868)
Great Sioux War (1876–1877)
Ghost Dance War (1890–1891)
Rogue River Wars (1855–1856)
Yakima War (1855–1858)
Puget Sound War (1855–1856)
Coeur d'Alene War (1858)
Mohave War (1858–1859)
Navajo Wars (1858–1864)
Paiute War (1860)
Yavapai Wars (1861–1875)
Snake War (1864–1869)
Hualapai War (1865–1870)
Modoc War (1872–1873)
Nez Perce War (1877)
Bannock War (1878)
Crow War (1887)
Bannock Uprising (1895)
Yaqui Uprising (1896)
Battle of Sugar Point (1898)
Crazy Snake Rebellion (1909)
Last Massacre (1911)
Battle of Kelley Creek (1911)
Battle of Bear Valley (1918)

The American Civil War, 1861-1865,
The Mexican American War, 1848-1849,
The War of 1812, 1812-1815
The Barbary Pirate war (1806)
The Undeclared Naval War with France in the 1790s
The War of Independence, 1775-1783

So, pretty constantly The US government was paying its soldiers and sailors to shoot at somebody, somewhere. Most of the other large empires, (The British and Russian and Chinese come to mind) were also involved just as heavily, and don't get me started on the subject of 'proxy wars'. 

4 — Foreign Powers Lavish Money/Attention on the Republic’s Leaders: Foreign wars lead to growing influence, by foreign powers and interests, on the Republic’s political leaders — true for Rome and true for us. In the past century, foreign embassies, agents and lobbyists have proliferated in our nation’s capital. As one specific example: A foreign businessman donated $100 million to Bill Clinton‘s various activities. Clinton “opened doors” for him, and sometimes acted in ways contrary to stated American interests and foreign policy.

Sorry, that's just being a Democrat. 

And back to the Romans, there were foreign leaders that caused problems for the Romans--Mithridates, Hannibal, various Macedonian Philips, I suppose Cleopatra, but in the end, the Romans always acted upon somebody. They were never the 'actees'. 

5 — Profits Made Overseas Shape the Republic’s Internal Policies: As the fortunes of Rome’s aristocracy increasingly derived from foreign lands, Roman policy was shaped to facilitate these fortunes. American billionaires and corporations increasingly influence our elections. In many cases, they are only nominally American – with interests not aligned with those of the American public. For example, Fox News is part of international media group News Corp., with over $30 billion in revenues worldwide. Is Fox News’ jingoism a product of News Corp.’s non-U.S. interests?

The writer has absolutely no knowledge of American economic history. For example: "The China Market" An issue in the 18th, 19th, 20th, and now 21st centuries. But really, 'foreign lands' is also a misnomer as far as the Romans are concerned. By the end of the Late Republic, The Roman Empire we all think of was pretty much Roman. There weren't really 'foreign lands' that anyone was making money off of. They were all Roman provinces. 

6 — Collapse of the Middle Class: In the period just before the Roman Republic’s fall, the Roman middle class was crushed — destroyed by cheap overseas slave labor. In our own day, we’ve witnessed rising income inequality, a stagnating middle class, and the loss of American jobs to overseas workers who are paid less and have fewer rights.

There was never a Roman "Middle Class" the way modern writers want to imagine. I will point the interested to "Rome at War: Farms, Families, and Death in the Middle Republic" by Nathan Rosenstein. The article writer, like most, cannot comprehend that the rise of affluence in other parts of the world, (Asia, Africa, South America) has effects, effects that cannot be wished away (or more to the point, legislated away). 

7 — Gerrymandering: Rome’s late Republic used various methods to reduce the power of common citizens. The GOP has so effectively gerrymandered Congressional districts that, even though House Republican candidates received only about 48 percent of the popular vote in the 2012 election — they ended up with the majority (53 percent) of the seats.

The article writer both doesn't understand Roman electoral politics, and also obviously hasn't spent anytime in large American cities which are all run by the Democrat party, and have been since the middle of the last century. I won't even discuss the safe 'minority' districts that both parties have tacitly established. 

8 — Loss of the Spirit of Compromise: The Roman Republic, like ours, relied on a system of checks and balances. Compromise is needed for this type of system to function. In the end, the Roman Republic lost that spirit of compromise, with politics increasingly polarized between Optimates (the rich, entrenched elites) and Populares (the common people). Sound familiar? Compromise is in noticeably short supply in our own time also. For example, “There were more filibusters between 2009 and 2010 than there were in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s combined.”

The obvious answer to this is that there was more and more bad legislation being proposed between 2009 and 2010 than in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970's combined, but I think we all know that. 

Anyway, The Roman Republic NEVER had such a 'spirit of compromise'. Consuls were constantly sued pursued in the courts by their political enemies (after their imperium ended, because during their term of office, they were immune), it was a tactic that predated the first Punic War, IIRC, and one of the reasons Caesar crossed the Rubicon. I won't even get into the naked political violence that the Roman  Republic regularly experienced from the end of the Punic Wars onward. Roman politics were blood sports. 

The one thing I will note is that the article writer focused on the Late Republic, rather than the Roman Principate (that is, after Augustus became Emperor). Usually in these articles, it's all stuff taken from later than what is mentioned in the article, so I suppose it is an improvement of sorts.