The only "peril to the republic" I can see are the "take back OUR country" types, many exhibited here. They, like all tea party ilk, run on fear and threats, constantly railing against some great unseen undefined foe, usually black and usually liberal.
Imagine how the majority feels for a change - the majority that elected our current office holders only to have a legislature bottled on one end by the appallingly stupid 'leadership' of the prior 8 years, two unfunded wars, and an economic system that had collapsed and then corked on the other end by Mitch McConnell and a 40 vote majority. What ever happened, I might ask, to "up or down votes" that we heard about for years?
Some comments on there give me the creeps.