Authoritarian rule can work until it doesn't. It can even work better than democracy for some time because decisions can be made quickly. The problem that when it doesn't, there's no path for self-correction.
I’m all for democracy, but we need to find a way for long-term commitments for nation building. If every head of state will wipe out 4-5 years of previous leadership’s work, you really can’t go far in today’s world.
That isn't a problem with every head of state, it only seems to be a problem with the US where social cohesion and national identity no longer exist, and partisan politics overrides everything. Other democracies don't have the all-powerful executive the US does, nor the innate hate and fear of effective government that the US was founded on, leading to a government designed to maximize friction and gridlock.
The US is dragged down by an archaic political system designed for a pre-industrial society of slavers that immediately devolved into a two-party binary of entrenched elites - a system the US doesn't even spread when it does nation building because it's so fundamentally broken.
So yeah, the solution here is just don't be like the US.
It seems to be more of a problem in the US than elsewhere, but I admit I may be biased by living here and experiencing it firsthand. I don't see Japan tearing down its medical and research infrastructure, for instance, or their government grifting crypto, or doing half the clownshit things the US is. The UK may be getting there, I don't know.
Do we have a democracy though? If so many politicians are bought by special interests, does our system of governance allow for any path for self-correction?