im sure you guys follow people who recently started to mindlessly drool over the tweets from bad actors like simon tesfamariam also.
the whole imperialist angle is dogshit too. 18 months ago ethiopia was a western darling since they privatized the economy and detatched from the massively pro-china tplf. there is no imperialist onslaught here. also, eritrea under afwerki have invaded all their neighbours and hosted military bases for UAE in their genocidal war on the zaidis. yeah, they're fucking buried in the sanction scheme. guess what? when you keep your soldiers as slaves and refuse to even pretend to hold elections for 20 years, you will get sanctioned without any ulterior motives. also somewhat bizarre to hear Puryear try to mention development metrics that are better than some warzone countries in central africa when eritrea on the other hand have the lowest information infrastructure in the world (probably intentionally so).
It's rare, but I've seen it. More common is praise for Rwanda of the same vein.
Oh yeah there's some identity weaponization in american propaganda around african leaders. Kagame is such a good example of this. Cause 6 million congolese deaths and become worshipped.. Why OP is so crucial to correct imo is because of this. the same propaganda mechanization would have people glorify abiy ahmad as the great liberaliser and peace-builder in the region. which he was until he started the war and got the propaganda apparatus to make a 180 flip. Im not sure how to articulate it, but I think we can see something of the same around eritrea? There was that weird pro-eritrea countercurrent surrounding nipsey husle hanging out with that dictator. interestingly, thats how we got the same simon tesfamariam as linked above going onto the breakfast club and perculate this faux-anti-imperialist messaging to afro-american mainstream culture - with puryear there aswell!