More than ever, the Narrow Sliver of Terrain is still the safest place to stand

It's the last reliable place on Earth

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I hesitated with this title. I do believe that the Narrow Sliver of Terrain is a thing, and that it’s a laudable piece of real estate. But the last thing I want to do is hawk a brand. The things that distinguish the NST don’t lend themselves to trendiness status. Faith in the transcendent realm, virtue (best encapsulated by St. Paul’s seven components of the fruit of the spirit), liberty, clarity, and respect for tradition have never had the sex appeal of movements, fads, and experiments with basic human nature that have gained a foothold in various times and places, particularly in the last five centuries.

So the term remains useful shorthand for fusionist conservatism, which, contrary to the carnival barkers of MAGA world, has not disappeared. It grows more narrow, though.

Outside of a few lone outposts, such as the offices for National Review and Commentary, it would be difficult to find a shoot of fusionism peeking up from a crack in the hard sidewalks of New York City. That city, which has the highest Jewish population of any US city, and the highest Jewish population anywhere outside of Israel, just saw its Democratic mayoral primary hand victory to a socialist Muslim Ugandan national whose platform includes government-run grocery stores, support for the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement, and a disdain for law enforcement.

He and his Syrian wife met on Hinge, and found chemistry on their first date. Understandably so. She’s on the same page regarding Israel hatred:

Rama is a 28-year-old illustrator and animator who lives in Brooklyn, but is originally from Damascus.

Her artwork is primarily in black and white, with the focus often being on a political message relating to American politics.

Most recently, one of her illustrations highlighted what has been described by human rights organisations as Israel’s ‘deliberate starvation’ of Palestinians in Gaza.

Rama wrote: ‘As I was making this, Israel has been bombing Gaza nonstop with consecutive airstrikes. Keep your eyes on Gaza and support Go Project Hope.’

Other work in her portfolio has focused on the ICE detention of Palestinian activist, Mahmoud Khalil, and New York charities sending over $60 million every year to ‘fund Israeli war crimes’ – an issue that her husband has long been a vocal critic of.

Is there any chance these two won’t be NYC’s next First Couple? I think you know the answer.

And this doesn’t bode well for those inside the national Democratic Party who have been exhorting it to move to the center and give up, or at least back away from overtly touting, the three pillars of the party’s 21st century raison d’être: militant identity politics, climate alarmism, and wealth redistribution. We all know which possible 2028 presidential candidate this development benefits: another self-proclaimed socialist from New York.

The drool-besotted yay-hoos of Trumpism will point out that progressivism has no foothold beyond coastal urban centers and the nation’s college towns. But the Very Stable Genius’s approval numbers are currently underwater. The latest developments regarding Iran have exposed fissures in MAGA. Young voters are tired of being governed by old politicians. There is a general increase in the whiplash manner in which the national mood manifests itself. It seems imprudent to write off an abrupt turn in public sentiment.

Trump is visibly pleased that NATO, at its just-concluded summit, has agreed that its European members will spend substantially more on their own defense. But let’s harbor no illusions that it’s because he cares about even the broadest notion of a West that is a unique blessing to humankind. As is the case in anything, he sees the agreement as a transactional win. He squeezed them, at great peril to Ukraine, and now gets to wear a smug grin.

And, as we know, Europe long ago lost any sense of the transcendent. Its cathedrals are mere tourist attractions. There’s more cohabitation and less marriage. Populism poses an ongoing challenge to continental consensus about the threat level from Russia.

The massive-ordnance strike on Iran seems to have inflicted considerable damage on the underground sites that were impervious to lesser means of attack, but we now seem to be engaged in a scavenger hunt for the 900 pounds of uranium that were the point of the exercise. That kind of detracts from the image of resolution the VSG would like us to embrace.

How about us here at home? How are we doing at placing a high priority on refined use of language, general comportment, adherence to institutional tradition and conventions, and the extending of grace wherever possible? Media outlets made much hay out of Trump expressing his frustration with Iran’s and Israel’s difficulty in arriving at a ceasefire by saying “they don’t what the f—- they’re doing.” But he’s not a ground breaker here. Plenty of other politicians, as well as celebrities, toss the f-word around to the point that it’s drained of shock value.

The Narrow Sliver of Terrain is the abyss-surrounded wedge on which principles are never situational, where human dignity and a focus on the highest form of real achievement - think art, not AI or space travel - are the highest priority, and where there is an acute awareness of the cost of preserving these things.

There are no answers worth a diddly to be found anywhere else. So plant your feet, put your hand on your neighbor’s shoulder when you start to feel wobbly, and pray. Real hard.