That's true. I'm normally very anti-authoritarian but these days I applaud when police come by and shut down public gatherings due to COVID-19. I think everyone is more comfortable with authoritarianism during this crisis. To be fair, there is a place for decisive action during emergency, as long as those emergency powers don't last forever.

However, long term, authoritarian leadership makes things worse due to lack of transparency and accountability to the people. They can clean things up short term, but then they hold onto power and rot society.

I guess there could be a place for temporary authoritarian governments to swoop in, sweep up the mess, and then hand over things to liberal democracies, but they don't hand over power easily.

A book I read on Vietnam (A Bright Shining Lie) floated the idea that communism never delivered on its promise to make society more equitable, but communist revolutions have played a role in eliminating backwards feudal governments and clearing the way for liberal democracies to take over. Kind of like a shock treatment, but with a very high price in terms of human suffering.

Anyway, we should all be very suspicious and ready to oppose authoritarian creep, because we're all susceptible to it right now, and it could stick around even after this virus passes.