The Epstein Myth Unravels: Why Capitulating to Hysteria Only Fueled Prince Andrew's Downfall

NOTE FROM MT: The following article was originally solicited by and written for Unherd, the British media outlet to which I occasionally contribute, late last week. I was asked to produce the article urgently and swiftly, given the breaking news of Andrew’s arrest, and did so, working through the night Thursday into Friday. The prose therefore contains some stylistic elements tailored to Unherd. I was even summoned to appear on an emergency Unherd podcast Friday morning, in which I discussed many of the same points I’d explain in greater detail in the article. The article was delayed, however, and went through several laborious edits — all factual queries were fully addressed by me, and I added some substantive/thematic modifications where reasonable, based on editorial input. However, I was just told this morning that the article is “not going to work,” for reasons that were not specified. The whole reason I agreed to do this for Unherd was that I thought it would be useful to get some sort of corrective in a British media outlet. But apparently that was not to be. Alas.

The folly of ever conceding to the premises of a rapidly-ballooning mass hysteria, in hopes of somehow curtailing it, or making it go away, was illustrated in world-historic detail last week with the arrest of the former Prince Andrew. Though nominally apprehended on hazy suspicions of “misconduct in public office,” Andrew’s perceived offense cannot be separated from the wild and fantastical “paedophilia” crisis that has been declared to suddenly exist across Britain, the United States, and indeed much of the world. All right-minded citizens are now expected to nod in sober agreement about the pervasiveness of clandestine “child-sex trafficking” networks, and the decisive role these networks purportedly play in dictating earthly affairs. Such notions would have once been confined to the most harebrained corners of the internet, but today have been embraced as a thoroughly mainstream sensibility, following the latest release of “Epstein Files.”

Cries of “vindication” have rung out from Epstein “survivors” who hailed the news of Andrew’s arrest as precisely the kind of “accountability” they have so often vaguely demanded. And what makes the development all the more empowering, we are told, is that this long-sought “accountability” was delivered on behalf of the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre — the most visible of all the Epstein “survivors,” who first made allegations of ...