Controversy‑Mute Effect

When a think tank or movement loses public credibility through unrelated scandal, policy proposals—even ones addressing verified national risks—can fail to get public or bipartisan traction. The political cost of association can silence sympathetic actors and prevent evidence‑driven reforms from being debated on their merits. — This explains why technically defensible policy remedies (here, for demographic decline) often stall: reputational shocks to proposers, not the evidence, become the decisive barrier to adoption.