[snowwrestler]

Long-term thinking is actually a big part of politics in the United States. Quite a few fights revolve around it.

Debt and entitlement fights are about how policy decisions made today will affect the solvency of programs like Medicare or Social Security decades from now.

Intellectual property fights are about whether making IP less lucrative will affect the rate of innovation over the long term--again, looking at decade time scales.

Tax fights are about the long-term impact on economic growth. No one thinks taxing the rich a few more percentage points will kill all the businesses overnight. The fear is that over time, it will reduce the pool of available capital to fund "big bet, big risk" investments.

Even fights over social issues like gay marriage are about the long-term moral health of our society.

A lot of these are expressed as short-term fights over self-imposed deadlines like the fiscal cliff, the debt limit, or the continuing resolution. But the reason the fights are so vicious is because both parties believe they are the ones truly thinking long-term.