Jon Liedtke joins 610 CKTB’s Gene Valaitis for his weekly segment, Liedtke Has a Take!
Jon Liedtke reviews America’s massive 250th Independence Day exceptional spectacle & praises the event’s unmatched logistical scale, contrasting American exceptionalism with Canada’s modest celebrations. Despite political differences, he urges overcoming toxic polarization to objectively appreciate the well-executed historic milestones and our bilateral cooperation that still exists today.
Transcript (Gemini Generated):
Gene Valaitis: It is time for Liedtke Has a Take. Good morning, Jon.
Jon Liedtke: Good morning, Gene.
Gene Valaitis: Now you were checking out 4th of July activities and you have a report for us. Now looking at the news feeds on Saturday, I was checking it out, it looked like a total cancellation with the heat wave, storms, emergency evacuations on the National Mall. So what was your impression? Watching July 4th from where you sit across the border, how did they handle the chaos? And basically what was your impression of the entire event?
Jon Liedtke: Well, Gene, thanks for having me. I was expecting a historic cluster bomb, quite frankly. Uh, there was the massive heat index, a full Secret Service emergency evacuation, a parade of dropout celebrities, it should have been a disaster. But instead, we got a master class in basically telling Mother Nature to sit down and shut up. Trump rejected a backstage suggestion to postpone the event. He snapped back at an aide saying, “This is the big day, we aren’t looking for July something else,” was the quote. And that storm delay provided Trump with the opportunity to practice Trumpism in its purest form, shaping and demanding reality to conform to what he wants. It was a bold move, had a big risk of going the other way, but this time it paid off for him. It was a spectacle. It was a—it was a 10 out of 10 show.
Gene Valaitis: Wow. Uh, the political and media talking heads are already divided over the address. Uh, critics calling it, uh, rhetoric overly partisan. But from your perspective, forget the critics, watching this with your own family’s US military history in mind, I know that about your family, how did the tone—how did the tone of this milestone speech hit you?
Jon Liedtke: You know, the professional hallway monitors on cable news, yeah, they’re going to clutch their pearls about this and whine about his anti-communist rhetoric and brand it as a dark campaign rally. But, you know, in reality, America and the West did defeat communism in the USSR through massive outspending. That is literal, objective 20th-century history. It’s not a campaign—partisan campaign rally statement to say that.
But quite frankly, a 250th anniversary milestone is too massive to mock. It demanded the solemnity, which is why Trump wisely did step away from what he typically does through his teleprompter grievances. And the staging was incredible, too. They had the American flag that was draped over Lincoln’s coffin, the 1777 Revolutionary War flag from Saratoga, the British war flag of surrender, the Iwo Jima flag from the iconic photo that people have all seen, and the original moon flag, as well as, what, I think 15 other historic flags, and in most cases, the descendants of the people involved with those flags, or American heroes who were involved with those flags specifically.
But as you mentioned, you know, as someone with deep family roots across the border, um, and on my dad’s side of the family virtually everyone served in various branches of the military, seeing the military honored like that, it wasn’t cheap theater to me. It was a sincere reminder of the sacrifices and what it exactly took to build the West and America to what it is, and precisely what it’s going to take to keep it. You can disagree with… or close friends.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah.
Jon Liedtke: Yeah.
Gene Valaitis: Um, you know, last week on Canada Day, before Canada Day and after Canada Day, I was asking a lot of our guests to compare and contrast how we celebrate Canada Day and how Americans celebrate Independence Day, July 4th. And I—I—I think the consensus was Canadians are grateful for Canada Day, but on July 4th, Americans really put it out there, “We’re number one! We’re number one! USA! USA!” They have those great military flyovers, which I love by the way. Uh, but there really is a difference. Um, um, um, there’s—I would say there’s a fundamental gap between us and them. Do you agree or disagree?
Jon Liedtke: Oh, I—I agree. The American ethos, Gene, it’s beautifully simple: go big or go home. I mean, Canada, quite frankly, we lack the logistical ambition to even conceptualize something like what the US just put on. On their broadcast, there were flyovers every 20 minutes in Washington, not to mention across all the other major cities that were hosting events. But back home in Ottawa, we had the Snowbirds fly over Ottawa a couple times.
Gene Valaitis: Yep.
Jon Liedtke: And for the US Ambassador’s party, we deployed two CF-18s alongside a couple US F-35s, and then we had a single lone Chinook fly by a World Cup viewing party. Um, you know, listen, the Toronto and Ottawa elites and the professional online anti-American class love to claim that we prefer a quiet, more modern dignity as opposed to brash US exceptionalism. But, you know, living in Windsor and I’m sure that you living in Niagara, on border towns, we can see that that’s nonsense. I—I see at least that Canadians cover for our government instinctively because we know that we don’t possess the imagination to even get to that point to pull it off, so. I don’t care what your political stripe is, when you look at that American scale, you just have to simply say wow.
Gene Valaitis: Wow, yeah. Including the 850,000 firework shells compressed into one show, and it got so smoky—well, you tell the story because it’s pretty something.
Jon Liedtke: It was pure, unadulterated madness, Gene, an arsonist would have been impressed. I mean, here in Windsor, we’ve got the Windsor-Detroit Ford Fireworks and it’s referred to as one of the best in North America. We set off 10,000 fireworks this year, far short of the 850,000 that they sent off there. Uh, it was a city’s budget every 45 seconds, quite frankly. Hundreds of explosions per second, at 10 different launch sites, eight massive barges.
But because of the DC humidity and the wind, at one point there was just a solid wall of thick, soupy gray smoke. You couldn’t even see the color of the fireworks, you could just see the explosions. Gene, Washington hasn’t seen that many explosions and smoke since we burned down the White House. But it was a great show.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah, and Jeremy Hansen, the Canadian astronaut was there. What?
Jon Liedtke: Yeah, and that’s so great. Seeing him and the Artemis II crew after that historic moon trip up on that stage, the US willingly sharing that brightest spotlight with us. To me, that was a nice reminder of the closeness of our two nations, what we need to get back to. It proved that in the real world outside of the toxic tribal noise that we see on our TV screens and on our social media feeds, uh, our two nations are still coupled together. And we’re not going anywhere, America’s not getting—going anywhere, so we need to get back to working together and, you know, to the US, here’s to the next 250.
Gene Valaitis: Okay, 30 seconds, and I’m not telling tales out of school here. Uh, you’re not a big Trump fan, but uh, has this weekend and his speech changed your outlook or not?
Jon Liedtke: I’m not putting a MAGA hat on yet, Gene, but I think, I think we need to get objectively back into modern political discourse. You can dislike a politician, uh, but not be legally obligated to hate every single thing that they touch, say, or execute. I don’t play that game. So does a fireworks show remove my criticisms of Trump? Not a chance. Did I enjoy the show and the speech? Yeah.
And I think we need to move past our toxic polarization and I think at least I’m mature enough to give credit where credit’s due, and I think your listeners are too. So, I thought it was a 10 out of 10 show, I respect the execution, it doesn’t change my opinion of the man, but listen, I like big sparkly things in the sky. Blame me.
Gene Valaitis: Another great take, thank you, Jon.
Jon Liedtke: Thank you, Gene.
Gene Valaitis: There he goes, Jon Liedtke Has a Take. He’s with us all the time.
This aired on 610 CKTB
Follow Gene on Twitter or LinkedIn
Leave a Reply