You haven't mounted any argumentation yet but I will continue mine. I do not believe the USA is fully authoritarian because most of authority compliance isn't done directly by the State. For example there aren't many movies critical of the US history because I assume many projects were just passed on by producers because they estimated, possibly accurately, that they wouldn't bring as much revenue as military-pandering flicks.

And at no point in this decision a representative of the US government intervened, yet the mostly uniform culture result is indeed similar to a fully authoritarian country. However, this also means outliers and counter-culture can freely exist which is not a typical characteristic of authoritarianism.

I would also argue that the illusion of choice/freedom is also too high in the US to fully qualify as an authoritarian country. And I believe this has stayed constant even through Trump's mandate which was arguably the worst for personal freedom post-War.

Of course I'm curious about your viewpoint on this topic.