People choose policies that might be beneficial in the short term, but very harmful on the long way. For example, restricting immigration might have a favourable short term impact on wages, but in the long term it will stagnate the economy and pensions schemes, and make people even more poor.

So... People who are hungry will vote for whatever brings food to their table today, so they don't really have a choice, because those policies or politicians are not actually on their side, they are just benefiting from the misery of others.