I find that that’s usually the case for most people. The part of the school system that was responsible for teaching them critical thinking skills really failed them. It’s also why people try to dumb down politics into one of two sides, it’s why our government will always inevitably fail. This guy is using the authoritarian label because that’s as far as his understanding of politics go. The US is an oligarchy, the US is imperialist, the US is nepotistic, but it is not authoritarian, yet.

Having said that, there are groups certainly interested in claiming that so that the authoritarian label means less for other nations, the sort of nations they want to defend. Given the submissions in that “community”, I would say this is the case here. People who really are against authoritarians and who might believe the US to be wouldn’t go and whitewash other authoritarian states. This community is a manifestation of whataboutism propaganda IMO.

The US deserves criticism, but if you really want to make it, I would encourage avoiding places with an underlying agenda like this one. In case you disagree with me, you can test it out easily for yourself, just post there and compare the US to other countries you would consider de facto authoritarian states, and see which countries they have a problem with you bringing up for comparison.