Pleased to Meet You; Hope You Guess My Name

Back in the '80s there was a bit of a tiff over whether US support of dictators was, strictly speaking, OK, and some of the conservatives thought that supporting authoritarian regimes was a Good Thing.  (That was Jeane Kirkpatrick in Commentary in 1979.)  With the end (mostly) of communist governments in the late '80s-early '90s, the term 'totalitarian' went out of fashion, but authoritarianism continued to spice up various national leaders' rule.  Conservative and "right-wing" thinkers do tend to lean in the authoritarian direction, especially some of the nationally known pundits.  Like Mr. Douthat.

Susan of Texas lays Ross Douthat to waste.

This is the reason for this entire exercise in doh. Douthat is the authoritarian follower and wanna-be leader. Trump is the authoritarian leader. Douthat is completely authoritarian. His work is authoritarian; he attempts to create a more authoritarian world. Douthat is in fact more authoritarian than Trump, whose self-indulgence keeps him too busy to worry about others' personal lives. Douthat doesn't like these facts so he ignores them and pretends that "authoritarian" means "bad man" and therefore he can twist the word into any use he finds convenient.

I need to check The Hunting of the Snark more often.