Biden Makes Telling Move with Menthol Cigarette Ban as Black Voter Support Crumbles
More and more black voters are realizing that Democrats don’t have their best interests in mind, no matter what the liberal politicians might say to convince them otherwise.
So what’s President Joe “You Ain’t Black” Biden to do?
How can he appease black voters long enough to be able to use their votes in November? For starters, he can allow them to keep smoking menthol cigarettes.
In a move to prevent the Biden White House from alienating even more black voters, a proposal to ban menthol cigarettes may be delayed until after the 2024 election, according to the Washington Examiner.
The Food and Drug Administration proposed banning menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars two years ago. Since then the agency has missed two deadlines to put the proposal into play. The latest deadline expired at the end of March.
The FDA has been considering a ban on menthol cigarettes for over a decade. All flavored cigarettes — except menthols — were first banned in 2009, according to CNN.
Biden delays menthol ban amid 2024 concerns over black support https://t.co/Vsraqfa9db https://t.co/Vsraqfa9db
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) April 5, 2024
Why delay the ban on menthols until after the election? In a typically cynical move by Democrats, the move could be designed to avoid prickling the ire of black voters. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 81 percent of adult black adult smokers smoked menthol cigarettes in 2020. There’s little reason to think that percentage has changed much.
If you’ve ever been around smokers deprived of their smokes, it’s not pretty. They get as agitated as a pile of red ants run over by a lawnmower. Any voters, black or otherwise, who have already grown skeptical of the Biden gang, might see the banning of their smokes as the tree that broke the economically overburdened camel’s back.
Biden has been facing pressure to approve the ban on menthol cigarettes. But the White House — which is susceptible to fits of paranoia as well as pandering — worries that enacting the ban might further push black voters away from Biden.
According to Politico, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf has urged public health experts and friends to pressure the White House to advance the long-delayed menthol ban. Califf apparently senses Biden’s support for the proposal is faltering because his political cronies are worried that banning menthol cigarettes could cut into his already waning approval among black voters.
A whopping 92 percent of black voters supported Biden in 2020. According to exit polls, Biden won the election with 87 percent of the black vote.
It’s not looking so rosy for Biden in 2024. In November, a New York Times and Siena College poll found that in six of the most important battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — 22 percent of black voters indicated they would vote for former President Donald Trump in the upcoming election.
Trump garnered only 8 percent of the black vote in 2020 and that was up from 6 percent in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center.
It’s only gotten worse for Old Joe. By January, a USA Today/Suffolk University poll showed Biden with only 63 percent of black voters.
The fog of smoke is growing thicker as the Biden camp searches for a way out of his declining support among black voters.
Democratic strategist TJ Rooney told the Washington Examiner that the Biden White House was making the right move to delay the ban.
“People of all race, creeds, and colors know the dangers of smoking,” Rooney said, according to the news outlet. “My hope is that the big thinkers are equally concerned with explaining the broader picture of what’s at stake in this election. This is a great issue for 2025.”
In other words, some Democrats think it’s a good idea to put off the ban until after the election. If Biden wins, the ban can then go into place. So what if black voters get irate after the election? Biden would be in his final term. What would he care?
Republican strategist Doug Heye said understands the Democrat concern but doesn’t believe the menthol cigarette issue would carry much water for Republicans, according to the Washington Examiner.
“Biden definitely doesn’t want to touch this before the election,” he said. “And if you’re a Republican, there are a lot more salient issues to voters.”
On Tuesday, three anti-smoking groups — fed up with political maneuverings — announced they have sued the U.S. government once again on the issue of menthol cigarettes, according to the health news website HealthDay.
The African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council and Action on Smoking and Health joined with the National Medical Association to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over the delays in banning menthol cigarettes.
The groups first sued the FDA in 2020 to get menthol added to the list of banned flavors, HealthDay reported: “Once the agency began to take action on the issue, that lawsuit was dismissed.”
Now, the groups are suing because the FDA missed the March deadline for issuing a final rule on a menthol ban.
“Because of defendants’ inaction, tobacco companies have continued to use menthol cigarettes to target youth, women and the Black community — all to the detriment of public health,” the lawsuit states.
The National Medical Association is a counterpart to the American Medical Association and represents black physicians.
In a news release about the legal action against the administration, the organization’s president, Dr. Yolanda Lawson, said the Biden White House is overdue in the move to protect blacks’ health.
“As African American physicians, we are deeply disturbed at the continuing delays in FDA’s finalizing of the ban on menthol cigarettes,” she said in the release. “Our patients, more than any other group, become disabled and die prematurely due to the continued use of these cigarettes.”
Don’t they get it? The Biden camp doesn’t give a hoot about the health of black people or anybody else.
Democrats continue to think that black voters are stupid enough to be manipulated into doing whatever the Democratic Party wants them to do.
With a GOP victory in the 2024 presidential election, black voters will have the opportunity to ask Democrats, “Who’s stupid now?”
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