Anthony Fauci vs. Joe Rogan: Poll Reveals Americans' Preferred Thanksgiving Guest
Joe Rogan put himself on the wrong side of Dr. Anthony Fauci when the comedian advised his younger fans in April not to get vaccinated and again when he said that he treated his August bout with COVID-19 by taking a host of supplements and medications that included ivermectin.
While the media has been busy for months rebuking Rogan for his casual view of the pandemic while supporting Fauci and his far more hard-line approach, a polling firm has taken on the important question of which of the two would Americans prefer to have at their upcoming Thanksgiving celebration.
The winner by a nose? Rogan with 51.3 percent compared to Fauci at 48.7 percent.
Unsurprisingly, the vote broke down largely along party lines, with 83.1 percent of Democrats preferring to dine and party with President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser and infectious disease expert, while only 17.1 percent of Republicans chose Fauci, as their preferred Thanksgiving guest.
Therefore, it was largely up to independents to break the near tie, and 61.8 percent of them broke for Rogan.
The poll, from the Trafalgar Group, asked 1,092 American adults: "Who would you rather have attend your Thanksgiving gathering, podcast host Joe Rogan or Dr. Anthony Fauci?" Trafalgar says the margin of error for its poll is 2.97 percent.
The poll was commissioned by Convention of States Action, an organization run by Mark Meckler the former CEO of Parler (a Twitter alternative popular among conservatives) that lobbies states to pass a Convention of States application in order to propose amendments to the Constitution by way of state legislatures.
"Fauci has gone from 'America's Doctor' to a deeply divisive and political figure trusted only by Democrats," Meckler told Newsweek. "In contrast, Joe Rogan represents unity, winning with independents and Republicans, and even some Democrats, all who view him as someone who calls em as he sees them."
The Trafalgar poll, obtained by Newsweek ahead of its release later this week, marks the second time that Meckler's group commissioned a study relating to the popularity of Fauci, the first being in June when a poll indicated that 60 percent of Republicans, 41 percent of independents and 20 percent of Democrats said their trust in the doctor had decreased over the course of a year.
Fauci's declining popularity in some circles is in part due to fast-changing, intrusive guidelines, according to Meckler, and the several books critical of him have not helped. The latest, written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is called, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, and it debuted at No. 2 on Amazon last week.
And on Sunday, Dr. Scott Atlas, a radiologist and author of the upcoming book, A Plague Upon Our House: My Fight at the Trump White House to Stop COVID From Destroying America, told Maria Bartiromo on Fox News that Fauci-induced lockdowns "failed to stop the speed of the infection," citing multiple studies that he said show that countries locking down earliest and hardest were the worst at slowing the spread.
"If you get vaccinated and your family's vaccinated, you can feel good about enjoying a typical Thanksgiving.… When you go to indoor congregate settings, go the extra mile, be safe, wear a mask," Fauci said last week at a Bipartisan Policy Center event.
Such statements by Fauci constitute "overly restrictive guidance," according to Meckler, who asked: "If he were to accept an invitation to dinner, would Fauci bring masks while Rogan brings a bottle of single malt scotch?"
The genesis of the poll that compares Fauci to Rogan stems from Rogan taking a lot of heat since disclosing he took ivermectin to help him recover from COVID-19, with CNN and several other outlets accusing him of encouraging people to take a "horse dewormer" or "horse medicine" to combat coronavirus.
Rogan responded to the criticism by having CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on his podcast in October where the two discussed the differences between ivermectin for humans as opposed to animals, and Rogan said that, in his case, the medication was prescribed by his doctor.
"I can afford people medicine, mother f**cker," Rogan told Gupta. "Don't you think that a lie like that is dangerous on a news network?" Gupta eventually conceded that journalists should not be accusing Rogan of taking horse medicine if the medicine was prescribed by doctors, and clips of the podcast have been viewed millions of times online.
Rogan declined to comment and Fauci did not respond to Newsweek's request for an interview.
"Part of this poll is just for humor, but Fauci, whose on TV practically daily, is the most endemic person of the pandemic, known all over the world, so it's interesting to compare his popularity to a pop-culture figure who is more outside of the mainstream," Meckler said. "And people were fascinated to see him fight back against the media when they said he was taking horse medicine."
