It sounds like you're making the mistake of looking at the 1800 election through our modern lens. At the time, there was no promise that the U.S. would succeed to the degree it has today. The "founding fathers" were not deified quite to the degree we hold them in our culture (assuming you're in the US).

As such, the subtitle isn't a literally calling Jefferson and Adams a madman and a crook. If that was the case, then yes I agree it would be distasteful and a difficult argument. Of course there are major differences. It's pointing out that someone at the turn of that century might have experienced something similar to what we saw this past year and that maybe we could learn something from knowing that.