Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's worse, cigarettes never threatened democracy the solution is real easy, section 230 should not apply if there's an recommendation algorithm involved treat the company as a traditional publisher because they are, they're editorialising by selecting the content vs, say, the old style facebook wall (a raw feed from user's friends), which should qualify for section 230
They fought a civil war over the labor required to produce tobacco.
"Democracy" itself was not at stake in the American Civil War because both sides practiced it. The Confederacy was/would have been a democracy analogous to ancient Athens--one where slaves (and women) were excluded from political participation. The vast majority of Confederate politicians, including Jefferson Davis, came from the "Democratic Party"--which, true to its name, championed enfranchisement for the "common (white) man" as opposed to control by elites.
Perhaps a better example is the "Tobacco War" of 1780 in the American Revolution, where Cornwallis and Benedict Arnold destroyed massive quantities of cured tobacco to try to cripple the war financing of the colonies.
Control of tobacco in Latin/South America since the 1700s (Spain's second-largest source of imperial revenue after precious metals) also had a directly stifling effect on democratic self-governance.