You misunderstand my point, Pyro. It's really not about faith in government, per se, it's about distraction via seeming positive but entirely inconsequential action (usually a myriad of them) with the aim of keeping objectionable or controversial action out of the public eye, and it's a tactic that has been used for a very long time now, in many governments other than just this one. Same reason governments sometimes go to war, which tends to automatically put a given populace in a certain mood or condition that may be favorable to the government's aims. These sorts of things are just more obvious in a democratic society, as in order for the government to pass things, ostensibly it needs to do so by the people's approval; thus it comes up with a lot of ways to attempt to manipulate people into doing things it wants them to do, while simultaneously trying to distract them from being aware of background machinations they would most probably object to.
