Well, there's the problem with our type of democracy.

It boils down to a popularity contest instead of a competence one, so politicians will do or say whatever gets them re-elected instead of what's good for the long term being of the country/voters/society.

Much like the focus on the "next quarter" of CEOs, that ends up ruining companies long term at the expense of quick profits short term, politicians in the west focus only on the "next election" instead of major issues like housing, education, pensions, demographics, infrastructure, defense, immigration, all of which require long term planning to get right but nobody cares as they just keep kicking the can down the road and hope they won't be in the office by the time shit really hits the fan. And when the shit does eventually hit the fan, whoever will be in office will just blame the predecessors for knowing X was unsustainable and not having done anything about it. Rinse and repeat.

Solutions to short-termism are very welcome, but more often than not they tend to boil down to "someone stays in power for decades", which is not really desirable, is it?

Which is super ironic as Merkel has been in power since forever, well, 15 years to be exact, but still, way longer than most other EU or western governments.

It's not great but at least it's better than public opinion having 0 effect on policy.