I think it's fairly widely recognized in politics that whether government is perceived to "work well" has a large impact on what people trust the government to

I think it's fairly widely recognized in politics that whether government is perceived to "work well" has a large impact on what people trust the government to do. So politicians sort of agree and are acting on it. Enough that it's become a fairly common debate whether politicians are acting in good faith, or are rather trying to manipulate the efficiency / perceived efficiency of policies in order to achieve ideological goals. For example, left-leaning Americans frequently allege that the current GOP policy is precisely based on that. Rather than (only) trying to convince people ideologically that small government is good, Norquist-style, the allegation is that their policy is to actively try to sabotage the government's ability to deliver social services, so people see it as inefficient/broken and therefore stop supporting it. Also occasionally a debate in Europe, especially around infrastructure projects (local/provincial politicians from the opposite party are sometimes accused of trying to actively cause a big infrastructure project of the ruling party to turn into a boondoggle, so the party can seem incompetent). In the other direction, officials are sometimes accused of cooking the books to make something that isn't running efficiently seem like it is. I think a lot of this kind of terrain is where modern politics is fought once you get beyond the first layer.