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Just by numbers most people in government posts are people who deal with the public and just want a job. Your description really only applies at management layers and above. Remember only a third of federal employees even have a degree let alone one in communications or similar, and many of those are in the Medical field as part of the VA and the like. Entertainingly USAID is the best counter-example with two thirds of its workforce having an advanced degree or higher! But that is not the norm across the Federal bureaucracy.
Your social security local office people are dealing with being yelled at by people losing their welfare and the like, they are VERY familiar with the lower/underclass and all their foibles and are probably not true believers in ideology as much as they are average workers worrying about making ends meet. Their direct managers will be as well. The local DMV is staffed by people from or close to the ghetto in fact here, so that wouldn't apply even for a lot of local government jobs. Remember most government jobs just by numbers are front facing. It wasn't until I moved to the higher echelons in the Civil Service I found all the politics and classics degree types.
From the point of view of the Federal government that would probably be the Senior Executive Service, of which there are about 9,000. If I were wanting to re-organize the Federal bureaucracy I would start with those 9,000 because they manage large projects and departments (basically the steps below political appointees) But of the sheer scale of the government in the US the vast majority do not appear to match your description.
In other words, the person most likely to take a government post is a non-degree having, neo-customer service worker, who (if you have never worked a customer facing job like that) will be very clear about how the rubber meets the road. Your Ivory Tower idea really only applies to a small minority in the upper ends of the government (but they are of course much more influential.)
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