When people vote in their personal best interests, that is a signal for a dying society. Imagine if you had a vote at halftime of a sports game and let people vote on what the rules should be. Ideally, they would vote out things like corrupt refs, and make adjustments to rules that have proven to greatly advantage people in a game-breaking way. But if they start voting in such a manner that they are reallocating points in order to personally benefit their team, the democracy is over, that's no longer a society with social cohesion voting on principle for the sake of the game.

Direct democracy populism where people are maximizing personal return should not be considered the standard that we aspire to. I'm not making a case for right or left wing politics, I'm just making a case against the idea that if people vote in such a manner that they will not personally benefit, particularly in the short run, that they are necessarily idiots that have been tricked into voting against their best interests.