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I can't speak for the grandparent, but there are political arrangements in between 21st-century egalitarian democracies and 21st-century totalitarian states. I don't know how many of them suit modern America very well, but they certainly exist.
I can't think of many countries I'd like living in besides the US, and pretty much all of those are western style democracies with universal suffrage. If they "certainly exist", where are they and why should I want to copy their model if they suck?
How about Liechtenstein? It’s a strong enough monarchy to override the elected government. Wealthy, developed, not gratuitously oppressive.
The UAE is an oligarchic/aristocratic confederation. It’s far less oppressive than its neighbors and used its oil to build a reasonably diverse economy.
How about Singapore? It’s not really a democracy. It is somewhat more oppressive than other US Allies in developed Asia. But not by that much, and quality of life is similar to other developed Asian countries.
Sure technically, but it's functionally a democracy currently and has universal suffrage.
Less oppressive than the neighbors, still shit. Average American life >>>> average UAE life.
The only true example people can ever give. Yes it counts. But even their democratic elements have universal suffrage.
It should be telling that of the many many many functional authoritarian governments out there, there's only one (maybe two) that is pretty good to live in, and they implement a lot of democratic systems and have universal suffrage anyway.
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It's a client state of Switzerland (to the point where the Swiss army asks for forgiveness and not permission when it conducts live fire exercises in Lichtenstinian territory), which is also a pretty good place to live for the same reasons and is an unusually direct democracy.
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