Due to the very real and observable ratchet effect, the outcome of your strategy is that things actually get worse… just slightly slower than they otherwise would. Voting for the “lesser of two evils” will never, ever make things better. You need to take a risk and vote for a non-evil to even have a shot at making things actually better.
I would argue that this sort of logical path wouldn’t be too shocking for the founders and they would just count on civility or elections to keep this from happening. The executive pardon itself is a fairly indefensible and corruption-facilitating loophole in the justice system.