Conservative Times Picayune editorial writer Tim Morris in Sunday's reflection section dated 4/2 continues to make a fool of himself and exposes his jealously towards former President Obama and the democratic party. His editorial concerning a study by two Princeton university economist looking at why middle aged white Americans are dying disproportionately from what the researchers call "deaths of despair - suicides, drug overdoses and alcohol related diseases." The researchers Anne Case and Angus Denton concluded that the tragedy is driven by the loss of steady middle income jobs for those with only a high school diploma or less. Denton said the labor market very much turned against them.
Morris lets his conservative ideology show and uses the study to suggest that is what propelled Donald Trump to victory. Then he makes the usual self serving statement that many of those voters believed they had been abandoned by the democratic party and largely forgotten in the eight years of President Obama. Morris just loves fake news and that is what his editorial is all about concerning democrats and President Obama. It was actually the administration of George W. Bush and the republicans great recession of 2008 that left the voters largely forgotten as Bush left office with the worst job creation record since the great depression.
The loss of steady middle class income jobs has been taking place for decades in America due to a number of reasons including the transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy that resulted from the Reagan and Bush 43 tax cuts. Automation, technology, Union job losses are also some of the causes. What Morris failed to point out was most of the loss in middle income jobs happened on the watch of President Bush 43. In fact Presidents Obama and Clinton created more jobs in the 16 years they served than Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 created in the 20 years they served. (see previous commentary on the matter)
President Obama was elected twice for good reasons and was the better candidate. And when it comes to creating jobs for America, the democratic party performs best by a wide margin. Morris, the republican party and other conservatives will continue to talk about Obama and the democrats because Trump and the republican party have no record of accomplishments to talk about. Their commitment is still division. Morris tried to get political with a study that was non political. He has been writing a regular editorial now for several months which turns out to be a waste of time, paper and ink. What a shame.
This commentary was written by Joe Lorio
