Republican have gone completely nuts for Authoritarianism for some reason???

two reasons:

1. in 2010 they got to gerrymander the fuck out of districts and thus got a whole bunch of safe seats where even total wackos can win primaries and then go on to safely win the general

2. the republican's whole ideology and support base is crumbling away and it's basically unstoppable at this point. old racists who fondly remember jim crow are all retired and young people are leaving christianaity at a consistent rate of around 1%/year. their economic policies are totally out of whack with what the bottom 90% need or want and no one believes tax cuts on the rich will benefit anyone but the rich. their only hope is overthrowing the government and installing a dictator and everyone knows it

Republican have gone completely nuts for Authoritarianism for some reason???

Conservatives have always been authoritarian. The difference between now and before is that decades ago, the political parties were aligned differently with some Southern conservatives being Democrats and some Northern progressives being Republicans, so the overall party platforms were more moderate. Also, conservatives back then couldn't admit to their desires to go full-on "papers, please" because the Soviet Union existed as a geopolitical enemy that they needed to maintain ideological distance from. (In contrast, they're happy to be buddy-buddy with fascist Russia, since it's right-wing authoritarian instead of left-wing authoritarian.)

TL;DR: Because coalitions and geopolitics have realigned, conservatives can express the true agenda they've always had in a way they couldn't before.

I'm xennial and lucky enough to remember a few yrs before the wall and have context to appreciate that most of my life has been during the most peaceful period (a blip) of human history. I think a lot of younger people are taken a back by this all bc they never thought about it and in some states aren't even being taught about it. Do most of your peers share your sentiment at the end of your comments?

Republican have gone completely nuts for Authoritarianism for some reason

I feel like this is a power grab. With everyone online and interconnected, it's a lot easier to see where the real problems are. Our collective blame shifts more and more to the top and it's becoming a lot harder to defend the actions of the rich.

I feel like that's a source for all of this, not just the USA. They know the party is over, but they'll fight like hell to keep it going.

The article is about direction, not position.

The report is even already way off regarding Slovakia, who just elected an authoritarian with sympathies towards Russia. Romania is a bit shaky too, they have very little trust in the democratic government, and could probably easily be swayed by a populist who says what they want to hear.

The article uses the report to show that Slovakia and Romania have improved relative to their prior measurement. It is silent on their positions relative to other democracies.

At least it's not Murdoch - but that's a very low bar

If you are referring to Trump, it's far from a done deal.

Though some would say that the US has been a fascist state for a while.