Joe Biden has had a rocky year in office. But, folks, this is only the first quarter.

There’s not enough space here to describe in detail the rough first years of presidents. In modern times, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton stumbled out of the gate, and Donald Trump, don’t get me started.

Perhaps the worst first year, though, was President Herbert Hoover’s. In October 1929, just seven months into his presidency, Black Thursday, the stock market crash that's seen as the beginning of the Great Depression, occurred. And for good measure, much of the West Wing and Oval Office was destroyed in a Christmas Eve fire. It was a metaphor for the rest of Hoover’s disastrous one term. 

First year doesn't dictate entire term

In the end though, you’re graded not on how you start but how you finish. A 2021 survey of historians by C-SPAN (I was honored to participate) ranks Kennedy the eighth-best president, Reagan ninth and Clinton 19th. But Hoover and Trump never recovered and are ranked 36th and 41st, respectively.