Anytime the government does anything it needs authority. Any society aside from the perfect anarchist utopia is “authoritarian”.

Throwing a tantrum over “authoritarianism” in the abstract is completely meaningless. It’s exactly the same as crying that the government did “something”. Yeah of course the government is authoritarian, that’s how governments work. Clearly liberals have no issues with some form of government existing, so there’s literally zero substance at all to work with here. It’s a nebulous word that’s devolved to mean nothing. It’s like a screwdriver: you can use it to assemble furniture or you can stab someone to death with it. I don’t see anyone publishing articles about “screwdriverism”.

The only time critiques of “authoritarianism” are meaningful is when they come from anarchists. Anything else is disingenuous.