It's not only the government, the media is very much a contributing factor too. One small terrorist attack yields multiple days of coverage and exposure. Terrorism is given an extremely outsized portion of coverage on the news and as a result people think it's a much bigger problem than it actually is. But it's an extremely convenient cover for taking away people's rights and spending even more money on the military.

I've posted this before in another thread, but after 2001, less Americans have been killed by terrorists per year than have been killed by lightning. And yet think of all the money and attention that have been devoted to something more dangerous than slipping in the bathtub, and the rights "we" willingly gave up for that. It makes 0 sense

Based on the definition of bureaucracy [1] I disagree with you. I do think the tail is wagging the dog in American politics these days but I do not think bureaucracy is the reason. I actually think the bureaucratic parts of our government work quite well. Examples being the National Park Service or NASA.

I think the real problem is that our elected representatives (politicians) are so concerned with reelection that they manipulate their constituents rather than acting as representatives. It's more of an electoral problem.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureaucracy