Well, he's right to the extent that Ezra Klein is a liberal and Vox is a progressive blog.
Maybe it's important to note, maybe it's not.
The article was interesting, but I would wholeheartedly challenge the author's assertion that Feldman's 'parenting goals' line of questions is
the definitive measure of authoritarianism. To me, it's actually the perfect example of a political scientist trying to play a psychologist and airmailing it.
There is a strong distinguishing factor between political science's view of authoritarianism and psychology's view of authoritarianism as well as a great deal lot of overlap and disagreement between the two schools; for example, do citizens gravitate toward authoritarian ideals based on ideology or personality - and if so - how do we define that ideology and that personality?
A psychologist, Bob Altemeyer, conducted a popular study on Right Wing Authoritarianism in the mid-90s:
http://www.uky.edu/AS/PoliSci/Peffle...ersonality.pdf (sorry, it's the only digital copy I could find). His questions, from my perspective, and especially in light of my perception of this past election, are much more in-tune with today's political climate and how we should go about defining modern authoritarianism.
Altemeyer references Erich Fromm in his introduction. Fromm believed that Germans who supported Nazism represented both submissive AND dominant personality types. The author of the Vox piece dismisses Fromm and what would later become known as the "Berkeley" research on authoritarianism as "junk science" ... that's asinine. Anyways, Altemeyer's findings ultimately circle around the idea of "Social Domination" ... ie. winning (how ironic) ... being the 'new' Authoritarianism (and I'm overly simplifying).
Trump won a campaign predicated ENTIRELY on winning. He was overtly competitive and arrogantly ambitious. What grew his appeal was being an underdog from the moment he lurched out of the gate and proving his detractors and enemies wrong literally every step of the way. Sure, he sprinkled some policy on here and there for show, but let's not kid ourselves: most people did not vote for Trump because he promised to build the wall or because he said he would abolish TPP.
They voted for him because he promised greatness. And is that not one of the fundamental principles that Americans are constantly encouraged to strive for essentially from birth?
I think to categorize Trump as an authoritarian in the traditional sense is a bit flawed because it carries these historically nefarious undertones. Is he a larger than life personality? Yes. Absolutely. But that does not automatically translate into an authoritarian. Not in the slightest. And it's logically and morally dubious to loosely propagate that message using a singular and oft-challenged scientific method.