Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - America Repeats the Same Crisis Every 80 Years. Here's How We Overcome It - Bob Crawford

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

Does America face a defining crisis every 80 years? In this episode, I sit down with musician and author Bob Crawford to explore the remarkable life of John Quincy Adams, why history may be rhyming once again, and what one of our most overlooked founding leaders can teach us about democracy, public service, and the challenges facing America today. Bob Crawford is the bassist for The Avett Brothers, the host of American History Hotline on iHeartRadio, and cohost of The Road to Now on SiriusXM’s POTUS channel, where he engages public figures and scholars in conversations that connect the past to the present. Crawford also serves as co-managing partner of the Press On Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing pediatric cancer research. Get a copy of his brilliant first book, America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm, and founder and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio. Pre-order my next book, All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump, out on the 17th of September in the UK and the 22nd of September in the US: ⁠https://www.scaramucci.net/allthewrongmoves Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You're among fans. Every 80 years, we get dunked. The revolution happens 80 years later. We get dunked with the Great Civil War. solve the stain of slavery diplomatically or politically, we do it through war. 80 years later, we have the Great Depression, and then that leads to the Second World War, and we eventually resolve that, but we're now 80 years out from the Second World War, and so the same things that Adams is struggling with, we're struggling with.

Adams writes in his diary, in 1820, will the state of Missouri come into the nation as a free state or a slave state? And he says, the only way slavery is going to end is through a civil or service. We're going to never give up with slaves. It could only come by war. And here we are seeing the end of the Voting Rights Act. So you have the Civil War, you have a hundred years until the Voting Rights Act is passed.

You have freedom in name only for 100 years after slavery. And so we've only had the closest thing to equality that we've had since 1865, which hasn't been complete true equality. And so now what happens next? I don't think we go back to slavery, but you have one group saying, We are going to maintain our dominance, no matter how, democracy be damned. Welcome to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci.

Joining us today, Bob Crawford. He is an author, of course, but he's also a musician. He plays the bass for the Avid Brothers. But he's got a new book out. First book, right, Bob? This is your first book, right? Yeah, it's my first book. All right.

So this is a great book, by the way. So congratulations on your first book, and I'm sure there'll be many others. America's founding son, John Quincy Adams, from president to political maverick. Listen, it's great to have you on here, but let's talk about the Avid Brothers, if you don't mind. How'd you get your passion going for music and American history? Yeah, South Jersey, born and raised. And so the boss played a big part in my upbringing there and wanted to learn how to play guitar. when I was like in eighth grade,

I wanted to learn how to play Springsteen songs. And that started me on the path to music, long, long road there. Interned for WPVI in Philadelphia, they had a South Jersey bureau. I wanted to be a news photographer. 1996, the Olympics were in Atlanta. I didn't get the interned,

the part-time position for the summer at WPVI in Philly in Philly, and the reporter I worked for, for us, they drive south, knock on doors, hand out resumes. I wind up in North Carolina, and that starts me on the road with the Ava brothers, and I worked in the film business for a while there. But history started even before the love of music. I just, for some reason, Anthony, you know, there's these subjects that we just kind of are attracted to, or we just kind of know. I think I owe it to growing up in the 70s when there were three channels, not 300, not 3,000. And my old man would come home from work and sit on the couch and he'd

watch the local news and then the national news, Walter Cronkite probably. And then if there was a convention on, you had to watch the convention. If there was a debate on, you had to watch the debate. You were kind of a prisoner to it. And my parents would him and hall about it. But I loved it. I was fascinated with it. So I think that's kind of where it all starts for me. Well, listen, I mean, it's a fascinating, you've got a fascinating career. I mean, you're in literally one of the most beloved bands in the country, at least in the last 25 years. You're writing about the sixth president, who is the first son of a president to become president, right? Of course, we have George W. Bush did that in our lifetimes.

But it's an amazing family, the Adams family, am I right? You know, tell us about the Adams family and tell us about John's father and his mother. and how he is groomed literally to be this maverick that he becomes. Not easy to be the son of John and Abigail Adams. John Adams writes to young John Quincy at one point, if you do not rise not only to the head of your profession but of your country, it owes only to your own laziness, slaveliness, and obstinacy. A lot of pressure.

John, of course, John Adams, second president, but before that, one of our most inconsequential founding fathers. And, you know, Abigail, John leaves to serve in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Abigail takes young John Quincy eight years old by the hand. They walk a mile to a nearby overlook and their eyewitnesses to the Battle of Bunker Hill. A few years later, John Adams takes young John Quincy with him when he crosses the Atlantic. I mean, they crossed the Atlantic back when very few people did this. And John Quincy is there alongside his father in Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson

as they're negotiating the French into the Revolutionary War and then negotiating peace. And so John Quincy, you know, John Adams, he's an independent, he's a maverick in his own right, right? He defends the British officers in the Boston Massacre. He does it because that's what you do in a free country. Everyone has a right to do process, no matter how unpopular that was for him. Yet he's still independent-minded enough to go and become an instrumental part in the fight for freedom and independence. So John Quincy's watching all of this. He's being educated, you know, the most important years of our young lives.

He's in Paris being educated. He's getting this worldview that will shape him as a diplomat in the years to come. Really unprecedented. He's skilled, but you know, and I know what ends up happening is sort of what Nixon said, great presidents become great due to their times, right? You know, if you don't have war and you don't have all these trials and tribulations, you could have a presidency that goes pretty well, more or less Bill Clinton at that. but then you have FDR that had to go through a depression and a war and pull the country out of it.

Tell us about the historical moment that John Quincy Adams is living in and tell us about his relationship with Andrew Jackson. I think that was one of the things that motivated you to write the book. So frame the moment for us. It's frighteningly like 2016. I mean, history doesn't repeat. Maybe it rhymes. I don't know. I think that really its human nature doesn't change is kind of the secret to this whole thing.

But Adams appointed to his first diplomatic post by George Washington, serves in the diplomatic corps under his father's administration. He becomes a senator from Massachusetts. He bucks his own party to support Thomas Jefferson with the Louisiana Purchase. And then with the Embargo Act, James Madison appoints him. the first minister to Russia, and then the head of the commission to negotiate the end of the war of 1812. James Monroe appoints him to Secretary of State, maybe our most successful Secretary of State ever. John Quincy Adams negotiates the treaty that brings Florida into the Union. He's the architect of the Monroe Doctrine.

It is with this backdrop that he's running for president in 1824. The problem is this. he's the establishment he's the old guard at a moment when the right to vote has now trickled down from white

property owners to white white men right in general and so you have a nation that's moving west and south and you have a new grassroots you know farmers and tradesmen

they're getting the right to vote they didn't identify with John Quincy Adams. He was from their father's generation. And while that generation created the nation, formed the nation, fought for the nation, it was still your father's generation. Every new generation wants to define the politics, the culture for themselves.

So these voters, these newly enfranchised voters, they identified more with this guy, Andrew Jackson. who was literally same age as John Quincy Adams. They're born in the same year. Andrew Jackson lives through the American Revolution, but he has a very different American Revolution

than what John Quincy Adams experienced. Andrew Jackson was poor. He lived in the Waxalls, which was a border region between North and South Carolina. His father dies when his mother is pregnant with him. During the Revolution, he's smacked across the face. and scarred by a British soldier. Andrew Jackson was kind of like a messenger for a militia down there.

He loses, ultimately, by the end of the war, he loses his mother and two of his brothers. He's an orphan. He ends the war an orphan. And he gets a small inheritance, and he's wild. But he studies the law. He moves west to Tennessee, and he makes a name for himself as a politician, but more importantly, as a property owner. And so he becomes famous when he's the hero of the Battle of New Orleans that ends the war of 1812. And he's the most beloved military figure since George Washington.

And so where it seemed like John Quincy Adams was going to have a coronation and elevate, be elevated, to the office that his father once held, the presidency, Andrew Jackson comes out of nowhere and steals it from him. But he doesn't steal it from him as in winning an outright victory. Anthony, we've got in 1824, we have four guys who've got a shot at the presidency, and they're standing for the presidency. You have John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, and then you have William Crawford, who's the Treasury Secretary, and you have Henry Clay, who's the Speaker of the House.

So although Jackson wins a plurality of the popular vote and the electoral vote, he doesn't win an outright majority. The vote goes to the House of Representatives, where each state legislature gets one vote. This was the plan in 2020, right? Not be able to certify the election on January 6th, then what would happen as, is laid out in the 12th Amendment, the vote would have to go to the House where Republicans had held more state legislatures than Democrats.

Trump would then be certified as president. But what happens in 1824 is the vote goes to the House and the top three vote getters stand for the presidency. That's William Crawford, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson. And some of the states who voted for Andrew Jackson in the election in the fall, switch their votes. They become faithless electors. And John Quincy Adams is elected

in the House of Representatives. It's very controversial. Cries of a corrupt bargain and a stolen election immediately rise up. And so Adam starts his presidency as a minority president and never gains the support

of the American people the whole time he's president. Thank you for tuning in to Open Book. And if you haven't already, please hit the subscribe button below. so that you're the first to know when our new episodes drop each week. We've got a lot more coming. And now back to the show.

The story has a lot in common with not just 2016, but also 2026. So I want you to take us through how the country resolved its problems then and draw parallel, if you don't mind to today, what it means for today. Provide some guidance, Bob. Okay, I'll do my best. So Adams is this failed one-term president. Look, here's what he comes into office proposing. He wants a naval academy.

He wants federally funded roads, bridges, and canals, what we call infrastructure. He wants a national university, which, by the way, was the dream of George Washington himself. And he wants lighthouses of the sky, which are telescopes, scientific technology. And in his first annual, annual message to Congress, what we today refer to as the state of the union, he writes to Congress and he says, basically, your constituents probably don't want to spend tax money on the stuff. But we cannot be palsied by the will of our constituents. And what he's essentially saying is, I don't care what your constituents want, nor should you, I know best, this is what's right for the country. So John Quincy Adams lays out the 20th century America in the 19th century when America is not ready for many reasons. Pauzyed by the will of your constituents becomes the rallying cry like Basket of Deplorables was in 2016.

So what happens? So Adams has this failed presidency. The American people, they just don't get them. He can quote Roman poetry. He can quote Greek philosophy. The common man wants someone who can speak plainly to him. And Adams never gets that part while he's president. Jackson wins in a bitter, but doesn't win by a landslide, but he wins convincingly.

He beats Adams in 1828. What does he do? He comes into office. He fires all the civil servants. He fires everybody in Washington that served under John Quincy Adams, installs all his people, all his loyalists, and then he goes after the banking system, creating economic havoc in the country,

and he begins to overstep executive power, which at the time, you know, Congress was kind of always the dominant branch of government. Even after Jackson, Congress reasserts themselves. After Jackson, we don't have another two-term president until Lincoln. It was Article I for a reason, Bob. Article 1 for a reason, but Jackson is overstepping, and there's a lot of fear in the country. And the fear over the overreach of executive power brings together an odd coalition of bedfellows

to form an opposition party. Because when Adams is serving in the Monroe administration, we were experiencing something we called the era of good feelings. And that's what they called it at the time. There was one political party. the federalists, the old federalist party of Washington and Adams had dissolved, and it was just the Democratic Republicans of Jefferson who existed. Well, now, after Jackson wins the presidency, they call it the Democrats, the party formed, and I don't know how deep we want to go down the rabbit hole, but the party, really the architect, the Carl Rove of that party is Martin Van Buren. And it's Jackson at the helm, and it's Jackson the cult of personality.

Jackson the military hero, you know, Jackson the man on horseback. And you have all of these coalitions from like southern nullifiers like John C. Calhoun, people who, you know, in the South there was this thing called nullification that was like really picking up steam, this idea that if a state doesn't like a federal law, they could just nullify it. And so there was the standoff between Andrew Jackson and the nullifier. By the way, John C. Calhoun, the head of the nullifiers, was Andrew Jackson's vice president. So just how convoluted our politics were at the time. But ultimately, you have the old federalist, the nullifiers, a group called the anti-Masons, which in a weird way we can compare to Q&ON.

They all come together and they formed the Whig Party. And so it's out of the executive overreach of Jacksonian democracy that we have the Whig Party. And it will be those two parties from 1836 until the eve of the Civil War when the Republicans break off. Essentially the wigs break apart and the Republicans come out of that. It's almost like we're a caterpillar and we're going through a cocoon period and come out of it on the other side as a butterfly. Anthony, and I don't mean to ask a question when, you know, I'm the guest here, but like, here's the question I ask myself. What happens to the old George W. Bush Republicans? Like, because that is the comparable with the wigs.

Like, all these factions kind of came together. We kind of see that, but those old school Republicans seem to be such a small slice of the pie that that you wonder where that, what I call true conservatism, like true. conservative. Like, like, MAGA isn't conservative, it's reactionary. Like, so they say they're conservatives, but they're really reactionaries in my... There's a lot of Jacksonian elements, right? Remember, you know, as you write in the book, it's emotionally driven. It's a high-speed, sort of charged political movement. But I, I, you know, I guess what I got out of your, I mean, I got so many different things out of your book, but the death of the wigs reminds people that, You know, you and I grew up thinking there are Democrats and Republicans and forever there will be.

But if we're really being honest, Donald Trump decapitated the Republican Party. And that Republican Party is now Republican in name only. It's really the MAGA party. And it's a group of populace. And the question is, is there a party that can form from 41% of the electorate, which are independents? And maybe it'll have remnants of the old Republican Party. I don't know the answer. but I do feel that we're up for another big change in the country.

I feel like this generation, perhaps people younger than you and me, Bob, or want change. But I think the reason I was drawn to you and drawn to bringing you on the podcast is that this is a story that we've seen before. We've also seen, you know, John Queensland is a little bit Trumpian in the following respect. He loses the presidency, but he stays in the game. So tell us about his nature. Tell us about the obsessive diaries that you went through. Tell us about his emotional isolation and tell us about his relationship with his dad and how it impacted all of this. Yeah. Well, take the last one first. His dad was his hero, right? He was his mentor and his hero. But his dad put so much weight and mother. His mother. His mother was a powerful figure in his life as well. In fact, you know, really caused havoc on his marriage.

You know, his mother really did. They were imposing people. They were strong-willed people. They had sacrificed so much to help found the United States that they groomed him to rise to the top. But I think more so what I think what John Quincy Adams gets out of it, how he was raised. After he loses the presidency, he feels rejected by the American people. And we know this because he kept a diary. He kept a diary that runs over

14,000 pages long. And he starts it when he's a teenager. And he ends it right before his death at the age of 80. And the diary itself is a psychological. clue into how he was raised and who he was as a person because he would chastise himself if he missed a day, right? He would have, there are days in the diary where he's actually making up, he, he missed a couple days, but he has to, he, it's like very Puritan, right? He has to do this. He has to keep this diary. It's more than he wants to keep the diary. It's that there's something inside him that he started it. And it's a shame upon him if he stops it, right? It'll be a failure upon him if he doesn't write in this diary and account for every single day of his life

in some manner. Some of these entries go on for pages. Some of them are sentences. But more so than not, they're longer than shorter and they are consistent. When they are not consistent, are these few times in his life where he suffered from depression. And he, so he loses re-election. And the inauguration of Jackson is in March, as it was back then. In May, he and his wife, Louisa Catherine, they're in Washington. They're waiting for their oldest son, George Washington Adams, to come and help them move back to Massachusetts. and they learn that George jumped off the back of a steamship and committed suicide in Long Island Sound.

And so Adams is devastated. Look, John Quincy Adams had two brothers who were alcoholics and died early deaths and had troubled, troubled adulthoods. John Quincy Adams had two sons who were alcoholics, died early deaths in early adulthood, and were, they couldn't live up to the family name, right? They were very troubled men. And so that pattern is eerie. And Charles Francis Adams, John Quincy's surviving son, his youngest son, he writes at one point in his diary, he says, I wonder if temperance doesn't run in people's families.

Like he realized, like, his mother's side of the family, there's a lot of alcoholism, before it's called alcoholism. And he says, I wonder if this isn't an illness. So it's really remarkable and troubling. So, but Adams goes through these periods of crippling depression. And he writes, you know, he will miss a few days. He will miss some time writing. but then often he writes through it.

He talks about, oh, the things that bring me joy, I don't feel like doing anymore. I have these mysterious illnesses and pains, like all these things, like, let me just tell you, you go to a therapist, they're going to tell you to keep a diary. Like, that's kind of what they do these days. And Adams is very self-aware. He's very much body scanning.

It's just absolutely brilliant. But Anthony, to your point, just to get to the psychology of the man. His son commits suicide. He's a failed one-term president. He's approached to stand for Congress. He says, I'm not going to run, but if the constituents elect me,

how could I not serve? In fact, I would serve on the town council if I was asked to do it. And right there, that is the public servant. Like John Quincy Adams, why do we not know more about him because we study the man at the top, right? You rise to the top in this country.

Springsteen's got a great B-side song. Everybody loves the man on top, right? And Adams got to the top, but he wasn't a success there. But I think he was our greatest public servant. Because what more does it speak of someone than to serve as president and say, I have more to give it to my country? And there was absolutely some ego involved in this. But he did it because in his DNA, whatever his parents wanted him to be president,

but what Adams got out of that, their sacrifice for the country is that you serve. So I have a theory about the country that I want to bounce off of you. And I think this is the reason why your book is so relevant for a young country. And we don't have the cultural tenants of a UK or. or a France or in Italy, even though our government now 250 years old is the longest standing government in the world right at this moment. We're just this very young country, constant flow of immigration, constant changing mix of demography, and so forth. And so we lose our institutional memory. And I see John Quincy Adams as a transitional figure. He has the memory of the founding

fathers and his dad and George Washington. But we're transitioning. again, we're losing that memory as we head towards a civil war. And so we now have to, we get dunked again. So I feel every 80 years, hear me out for a second, we get dunked. The revolution happens 80 years later, we get dunked with the great civil war. We can't solve the stain of slavery diplomatically or politically. We do it through war. 80 years later, we have the Great Depression. And then that leads to the Second World War. And we eventually resolve that, but we're now 80 years out from the Second World War. And so the same things that Adams is struggling with, we're struggling with. What are your thoughts on that? And how do you think

we should all be thinking about that based on your observation and your writing of John Quincy Adams? Adams is appointed to his first diplomatic post by Washington, and he serves in Congress alongside Lincoln. So when we're in school, we learn the revolution, we learn the Civil War. They seem like completely, you know, different times. They're different eras. But you have Adams who, my argument in the book is he's the man standing in the gap. He's upholding the, in one hand, he's got the Declaration of Independence. In the other hand, he's got the Constitution.

And he is holding up these founding principles. at a time when the country is going through what I call its tortured adolescence. The 80-year theory. I think you're right. I mean, I think there's no doubt about it. And we are, like, we can't peek around this corner, Anthony. We don't know what we're heading towards.

I'm a realist, and people say to tell me that really I'm a pessimist, being a realist, you're a pessimist. But I'm a little more optimistic. than I've ever been that it ain't going to be pretty, and it's not going to be perfect, but we're going to get to 300. You're like, we're 250. We're going to get to 300.

I think we're going to muddle through this somehow. And like, none of it has been pretty. But by the way, you mentioned the Civil War and the ending of slavery. Adams writes in his diary in 1820. And this was not for public consumption. This was him as Secretary of the State, Secretary of State, while the nation was debating the Missouri, what became the Missouri compromise, will the state of Missouri come into the nation as a free state or a slave state?

It tore the country apart. Exactly. They couldn't get it resolved politically. It could not get it resolved. So Adams writes, the only way that's, and this is where he begins to really write about slavery in his diary is this moment. And he says, the only way slavery is going to end is through a civil or servile war. He knew it.

The South will never give up its slaves. They will never do it. And so it could only come by war. The end of slavery could only come by war. And here we are seeing the end of the Voting Rights Act. Right? So you have the Civil War. You have 100 years until the Voting Rights Act is passed.

So you really don't have, you have freedom in name only for 100 years after slavery, which is, it's insane to think about it. And so we've only had the closest thing to equality that we've had since 1865, which hasn't been complete true equality. And so now what happens next? I don't think we go back to slavery. But you have one portion of the country, one group saying we will be dominant. We are going to maintain our dominance, no matter how, democracy be damned. Right.

Interesting. All right. Well, listen, it's a phenomenal book. It's a delight to have you on our show. We have five words that we always pick out of an author's book. And then we ask the author for a sentence to end our show. All right? So I'm going to give you the word.

You give me a sentence. Ready? If I say democracy, you say what? I have to say Jackson. Okay. If I say founding fathers. I say Adams. Okay. What about founding son and the implication of having a founding father as a father? John Quincy Adams. How about America, Bob? What if I say America? Hope.

And if you had to say one thing about John Quincy Adams to close this out, what would it be? Let justice be done, though the heavens fall. Right, which is a famous line of his, right? Yes. Well, actually, I think it comes from, originally, it's from an Irish, a man who was fighting for freedom in Ireland, who I cannot quote his name. Well, I think the book is phenomenal on a number of different levels, but the main level for me is that he is the guy who really wants to serve. And ultimately, that's the leader that we need to be looking for right now at this time in our country. So I appreciate you writing this book. The title of the book is America's Founding.

son, John Quincy Adams, from president to political maverick. It's written by Bob Crawford, a legendary musician, who I expect will be writing more books. Oh, I hope so. Thank you, Anthony. You're going to be writing more books, my friend. Okay, hopefully we'll get you back on the program. Thank you again for joining us on Open Book. All right. My pleasure. Thank you.