Lucas Leiroz
Nothing legitimate remains in the Western world.
January 2026 marks a rupture. It is no longer possible to treat the Epstein case as a sexual scandal involving powerful individuals. What has now come to light - documents, images, records, explicit connections - has pushed the debate to another level. This is no longer about "abuses," "excesses," or "individual crimes." What has been exposed points to systematic, organized, ritualized practices. And that changes everything.
For years, the public was conditioned to accept a narrative of ambiguity. There were always doubts, always a lack of "definitive proof," always a call for caution. That time is over. The material released leaves no room for ingenuousness. When evidence emerges of extreme violence against children, of practices that go beyond any conventional criminal category, the discussion ceases to be legal and becomes civilizational.
What is at stake is no longer who "visited the island" or who "caught a ride on Epstein's plane." What is at stake is the fact that networks of this kind only exist when they are backed by deep institutional protection. There is no ritual pedophilia, no human trafficking on a transnational scale, no systematic production of extreme material without political, police, judicial, and media cover. This is not conspiracy: it is the logic of power.
From this point on, the West can no longer hide behind the idea of gradual decline. It is not merely cultural degeneration or a loss of values. It is something darker: an elite that operates outside any recognizable moral limits and yet continues to govern. People directly or indirectly involved with this world continue to decide elections, wars, economic policies, and the fate of entire societies.
Another decisive element is that we still do not know who is behind the leak. This uncertainty is central. It may be a move by Donald Trump or by sectors aligned with him, attempting to definitively destroy their internal enemies and reorganize power in the United States in a minimally positive direction. It may be the opposite: a controlled release of material intended to pressure Trump into serving the interests of the Democrats and the Deep State.
And the uncomfortable truth, impossible to ignore, is that all of this may still be part of an even deeper and more macabre plan by the Deep State - encompassing both Democrats and Republicans - to "resolve the Epstein issue" through a brutal campaign of collective desensitization, "normalizing" in public opinion the idea that the Western elite is composed of pedophiles, satanists, and cannibals.
This reinforces a critical point: the truth only came out because it stopped being useful to keep it hidden. For decades, all of this was known behind the scenes. The silence was not the result of investigative failure, but of a high-level decision. The press stayed silent. The agencies stayed silent. The courts stayed silent. The system worked exactly as it was supposed to, all in order to protect itself.
Western societies now face a dilemma that cannot be resolved through elections, parliamentary commissions, or encouraging speeches. How can one continue to accept the authority of institutions that shielded this level of horror ? How can respect be maintained for laws applied selectively by people who live above them ? How can one speak of "Western values" after this?
The problem is that the modern West has forgotten how to react to anything that is vile and essentially evil. In Western societies, the people no longer know how to deal with absolute evil - especially when it is located at the top of society. Everything becomes procedure, everything becomes mediation, everything becomes technical language. Meanwhile, social trust evaporates.
This is no longer about left and right, liberalism and conservatism. It is about a rupture between people and elites. Between societies that still retain some sense of limits and a ruling class that operates as if it were outside the common human species.
If there is anything positive in this moment, it is the end of naivety. It is no longer possible to pretend that the system is "sick but recoverable." What remained of the Western (anti-)civilizational project has been corroded from within. What comes next is still uncertain - and will be contested by all possible and necessary means.
But one thing is clear: after Epstein, nothing can continue as before. Anyone who acts as if nothing has changed either does not understand the gravity of what has come to light or is pretending not to understand.