Leadership Quote by John McCarthy

“When I see a slippery slope, my instinct is to build a terrace” is a politician’s way of reframing a classic scare tactic as a design problem. The “slippery slope” is the stock argument against reform: change one rule, and you’ll tumble into chaos. McCarthy flips it with a builder’s metaphor. A terrace doesn’t deny gravity; it works with it, cutting a dangerous incline into manageable levels. The line sells an ethos of pragmatic governance: don’t pretend risks aren’t real, engineer the conditions so society can move without falling.

The subtext is a quiet jab at purists and doom-merchants. Instead of moral panic or absolutism, he offers incrementalism with intent. Terracing also suggests planning, patience, and public works - not the adrenaline of culture-war politics but the slow competence of committees, zoning, budgets. It’s a fantasy of politics as infrastructure: problems are solvable if you’re willing to get your hands dirty and accept tradeoffs.

Contextually, it lands best in debates where opponents warn that a policy change (on rights, regulation, technology, spending) will trigger irreversible decline. McCarthy’s answer is: fine, let’s assume the slope exists; that’s exactly why we need guardrails, stages, and oversight. It’s reassuring to moderates, mildly insulting to absolutists, and rhetorically clever because it concedes the premise while stealing its fear. The slope stops being a threat and becomes terrain to be shaped.