>So the opposite of what an authoritarian would do.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that's not entirely right.

Authoritarians aim to centralize power to themselves. By removing other sources of power, their power grows. An authoritarian's ultimate goal in the US is to remove all checks and balances they can.

In comparison a libertarian aims to remove non-centeral government, like laws that effect small towns, schools and police forces in small towns, and so on, though each libertarian voter aims to remove different things, so not to mislead: Not all libertarians want to remove police, or schools, or roads, or whatever else. What you will not hear is a libertarian wanting to remove congress or another form of checks and balance.

But ceding authority to states cuts against that argument again, as it's no longer full centralization, yes?

That's a good point. Removing centralized laws so there is more autonomy for individual states is one thing, which is not removing checks and balances. I overlooked that on the libertarian part of the comment.

Unfortunately, Trump did not go around removing centralized laws, or any I know of at least. Everything he did has more to do with a power grab as best I can tell.

This is an interesting point, but he's also done and said a number of things that indicate a level of comfort with his supporters committing violence that is entirely inappropriate for a leader of a democracy, and suggests that he wants a paramilitary loyal to him. Those are exactly the actions of an authoritarian. "Stand back and stand by"

There's also been a focus on personal loyalty in high office that is also unseemly in a democracy, and has caused problems for the USA in the past too.

I suspect that his choosing of those judges was a combination of him listening to his handlers when they (rightfully) told him big portion of his base was only in it for the judges combined with the assumed belief on Trumps part that any judges he appointed to show him loyalty in any legal situation (they won't).