How could you forget about career politicians?
I am not sure what circles you operate but I have never heard anyone at the layman level state any sort of distrust of software engineers.
End of the day, they’re laborers and they have no choice on what is being built. It’s not like most people in software are making enough to own a home in SV on their own anyway. It’s still a dual (tech) income (or big windfall) market.
Which is by itself a moral (immoral?) stance, saying that you don't have problems doing all kinds of evil stuff as long as the money is good.
The combination of being sure they know how the world works (like a business of course), surrounding themselves with sycophants, and being smart enough to convince themselves of anything which makes them get high off the smell of their own farts, leads to terrible garbage like our current administration.
The damage has been caused by media and career politicians’ use of such. You’re right that they’re not overtly dangerous in office (doing crazy things means you don’t get re-elected) but that just makes the negative effects of their actions less obvious, not less severe.
> people whose entire career is [dedicated] to public service
I accept this framing for the career administrators who have (or had) a job to do. A person who makes a career out of repeatedly being elected to public leadership positions might fall under that umbrella but seems to have a higher propensity for dishonest behavior. Put another way: a career politician is not necessarily a career civil servant, there just happens to be some overlap.