This is not to take the heat off of Trump and his coterie of tradcath fascist weirdos, but to extend it to the more "normal, respectable" fascists who also richly deserve it, but who we have been taught to view as lesser or necessary evils. Good cop, bad cop, ACAB.

Yes, that is pretty much the gist of it.

On ML, they often complain that "authoritarian" is a liberal buzzword to make foreign governments seem scary. And they do have a point here, because it is used like that in liberal discourse.

However, I think the word is still useful, as long as you don't selectively apply it and also use it to criticize liberal democracies.