As best as I cant tell, to Americans Authoritarian means "Not allowing for CHOICE." I bold choice because it's the key for American brainwashing. So for example if you had one society that gave guaranteed healthcare, housing, education, and food but it was limited to one type of each service and you HAD to take it, and you had another that didn't guarantee all those things but if you could access it then you had a choice between many or none at all, the second would be less "Authoritarian."

Also it is in the act of choosing itself that the American ideology places freedom. So if you lived in a society where everyone got to contribute to the planning of national goals and structure of society, but once decided everyone was required to follow it, on one hand and a society where planning and goal setting were out of the hands of the overwhelming majority of people, but then you got to vote between plans set by those who did have the power to make them then the latter would be more "Free."

It really is the fetishization of choice, that you find a ton of the American ideology.