There have been three presidents I actually voted for Nixon, Reagan and Trump, the rest of my votes have been against the other guy, because the other guy would have been far, far worse. Let's be realistic isn't that likely the reason most politicos have their jobs?
Oh, I absolutely agree with you (though I was a bit young to vote for Nixon). I actually voted for Bush 41 in 1988, (naively) believing that after having experienced 8 years of working with Reagan and seeing how his policies worked, he actually had changed...damn, was THAT a mistake.
My philosophy is to vote for whom you really want in the primaries, and vote against the creature from Hell in the general. Other than Reagan and Trump, that’s what I’ve done.