Politics & Power Quote by Jack Kingston

The line walks the careful tightrope of American democracy-promotion: encouraging enough to sound principled, cautious enough to avoid sounding imperial. Kingston’s “we are behind them” is deliberately physical language, a posture of support without specifying what support actually means. It’s solidarity as a photo-op: present, approving, strategically noncommittal.

The shrewdest move is the concession: “We know it is not perfect, as we are still working on ours.” That small admission functions like diplomatic armor. It preempts the predictable critique - who is Washington to lecture anyone? - by staging humility. But it also quietly recenters the United States as the reference point: America’s democracy is the model, even when it’s unfinished. The “we” here is doing heavy work, flattening U.S. political dysfunction into a relatable work-in-progress while implying an authority to grade Ethiopia’s progress.

Calling democratization a “great and noble endeavor” signals the moral framing policymakers prefer: democracy as virtue, not merely governance. That elevates Ethiopia’s internal struggle into a universal mission, which can justify attention, aid, pressure, or intervention later, depending on convenience. It’s a compliment with conditionality baked in.

Context matters: Ethiopia’s elections and political liberalization have long been entangled with concerns about instability, ethnic conflict, and strategic alliances in the Horn of Africa. So the quote isn’t just cheerleading. It’s Washington’s familiar message: we support your choice, so long as it yields an outcome we can recognize as legitimate - and compatible with our interests.