Another round of the Epstein affair is already fading from the headlines. But the issue itself is likely to stay with us for good. For decades to come, we will hear that this or that public figure must have taken part in pedophile orgies and is therefore being blackmailed—a universal explanation for anything and everything.
Still, a few thought-provoking articles have emerged, along with some genuinely important themes. For instance, Stanford professor Alice Evans published a striking essay comparing the reaction of today’s political class to the response of British authorities to the Pakistani grooming gangs, and to the Catholic Church’s handling of child abuse scandals. Her argument is straightforward: cover-ups and minimization cause enormous damage and breed deep mistrust. When such cases arise, they should be handled decisively and transparently.
At first glance, this sounds entirely reasonable. But it ignores a basic fact of political life: you have adversaries. If you adopt a doctrine of “absolute decisiveness and transparency” without limits, it is almost inevitable that your opponents will begin manufacturing accusations. These will be difficult to distinguish from genuine cases. They will be used to eliminate your key people, and any attempt at careful scrutiny will be met with loud claims that you are downplaying the problem. In the end, your own honesty and good faith can become a liability—one that destroys you—while your opponents will never concede that you acted honorably.
Hungary offers a recent example. There, a pedophilia scandal was treated with utmost seriousness and strict adherence to principle. Several figures were forced out of politics, including individuals whose connection to the case was only marginal and likely unintentional. It was precisely this episode that helped give rise to Peter Magyar.
In short, this is a problem with no clean solution.