There is something deeply fascinating, and deeply depressing, about watching the entire West, except the United States, buy into Zelensky's nonstop propaganda and lies. Anyone with a few functioning brain cells can see that he is an odious charlatan, shifting his claims, moving the goalposts, and making stuff up whenever it suits him. Yet across the West, people swallow the act whole. Americans are the only people who see through it in any substantial numbers. I don’t pretend to know exactly why. It must have something to do with a combination of American history, the country’s founding creed, its education, its self-conception, and its religious inheritance. That same independent streak made Donald Trump’s election possible. But whatever the reason, the fact is that the West is over. The instinct for independence and plain truth now only survives in America, and even there it is being steadily destroyed. Ronald Reagan called America the last stand on earth. He was right. If we lose it here, it will be gone forever.