YouTube Favorites #4: Kraut
Why can’t Russia shake its authoritarian ways? Why does Mexico’s government struggle to control its borders? Kraut, a European YouTuber from Austria, tackles these questions through meticulously researched video essays about international affairs, history, and politics.
His Russia series explains why it never became a modern nation-state. During medieval times, Tartar rulers treated Russia as territory to exploit rather than govern. This created an illiberal political culture that persists today: the weak aren’t citizens to protect, but pawns to serve state interests. This explains Putin's Russia, where might makes right and democracy is just window dressing.
Mexico has the opposite problem: a weak central government that never managed to control its elites. The Mexican American Border series shows how Mexico remains dominated by powerful landowners and cartels, with federal authorities struggling to assert control. These insights are particularly relevant as US-Mexico relations face new challenges with the new American administration.
The Mexican American Border:
On a more positive note, his video about Estonia shows how a small nation transformed itself into a digital state that other developed countries should emulate.
As a French citizen, I particularly enjoyed his analysis of France’s top-down political structure and its history of absolutism. His videos on French-Algerian relations and police brutality shed light on current social tensions, and why the ghosts of the Second world war still haunt the country today.
Kraut is one of my favorite source for modern geopolitics. Every new video goes straight to my watch later list, and I’ve learned more from his channel than from any other source on YouTube.