Latest / Kvetch & Release / 610 CKTB | Lake America: Cartographic Trolling: Trump’s Nonstarter Wish to Rename Lake Ontario to Lake America

Transcript

610 CKTB | Lake America: Cartographic Trolling: Trump’s Nonstarter Wish to Rename Lake Ontario to Lake America · Kvetch & Release

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It's John Litke with his fantastic Litke's Gotta Take. Good morning, Johnny.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Good morning, Gene.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, yesterday was the, as I said, the
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: 25th of August. But for anybody in talk radio, it
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: was really the 25th of December. It was like Christmas
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: with everything going on. Now, I know you saw the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: post from Trump saying he is giving, and I quote,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: serious consideration, unquote, to changing the name of Lake Ontario
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to Lake America. because he doesn't expect to be doing
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: much business with Ontario and Doug Ford anymore. Now, is
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: this a real policy move, or are we just watching
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: high-stakes cartography trolling on social media?
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: He is the troll in chief. He's a once-in-a-generation troll.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: This is reality TV that we all get to watch
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: on our news feeds. But here's the thing. I thought
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Republicans didn't like cancel culture. But here we are watching
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: a U.S. president trying to cancel a 10,000-year-old body of
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: water on his own social media site because our premier
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: gave him a piece of his mind on our Canadian airwaves.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: It's wild. You can't tweet away an international watershed. So, yeah,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's high stakes cartography trolling, as you said,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: pure and simple. This guy, he wants headlines. He wants
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: the media to obsess over it because he wants to
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: distract from the actual economic issues that he has going
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: on right now. Primarily, you know, gas prices are still high.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: There's still inflation. The Strait of Hormuz isn't fully open.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: There's a war going on, of course, with Iran that
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: caused that. I mean, the situation is not great. So
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: geographic reality doesn't care about his social media feed.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Well, he explicitly tied this whole thing to not doing
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: business with us right after Doug Ford told him on
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: my friend Bill's show up in Ottawa to kiss his ass.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: And it went crazy viral. But is there is there
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: something deeper going on here? I always wonder about this.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Is this just a personal tit for tat between Ford
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and Trump? Or is Ontario genuinely being singled out because
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: of this little personal sore spot?
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think it's 100 percent personal. Look at the pattern.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Trump doesn't like to be challenged. He doesn't like to
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: be personally insulted. And he certainly doesn't separate public policy
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: from his personal brand. And when he gets hit, we
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: know from him self-professedly that he hits back harder. But
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: it's more than that. Where has his brand taken some
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: of the most embarrassing public beatings? In Canada, in British Columbia,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: and in Ontario, where Canadian property owners literally paid millions
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: of dollars to rip his gold letters off of now-former
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Trump hotels, removing the Trump brand from global international skylines
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: for him. So his ego is bruised. He's hurt, Gene.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: It's sad. So when Doug Ford tells him where to
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: stick it or, you know, where to kiss it, excuse me,
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Trump responds by trying to rebrand a 7,000-square-mile lake. This
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: is childhood playground dynamics mixed with multibillion-dollar supply chains.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Well, you know what happens when people have their feelings hurt,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: and we don't disagree on this show. So let me
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: just stop to give Trump, you know what? Aw, muffin.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I was waiting for it.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: He needs an aw, muffin. Aw, muffin. Well, you know,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: we've seen this movie before, though, John. I remember when
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: he was drawing on that weather map with a Sharpie
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: to say that the storm went up to Alabama when
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: it never did. And then declaring the Gulf of Mexico
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: as the Gulf of America. So how much of this
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: is actual international policy now? How much of it is
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: just feeding the media circus? Hey, but listen, though. In
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: the United States, Google Maps has gone along with the
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Gulf of America thing.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, countries get to decide what they call
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: things within their own borders, and corporations that have mapping,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: for example, or other organizations have to adhere to it
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: if they want to continue to operate within those boundaries.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: So it's Sharpie Gate 2.0, but with a great lake
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: instead of a hurricane. It's hilarious. It's the same mental framework.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: He creates the narrative, he projects the dominant, and then
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: he forces his cabinet and his federal agencies to validate
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: it on the maps to make him feel better. But
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: here's the kicker. Just like he couldn't sharpie a hurricane
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: into Alabama, he can't tweet away maritime law and internationally
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: agreed upon names. Internal maps in the U.S. now might
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: say Lake America, if that actually happens, but Canada, the U.N.,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: and every international cartographer on Earth is going to keep
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: printing Lake Ontario. It's just like how Rogers keeps trying
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: to get us to call it anything other than the
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Sky Dome. Not going to happen.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Not ever in my life. Now, listen, I'm a very,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: very lucky guy. I happen to live one block away
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: from Lake Ontario. And I can be on the beach
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: in like a minute and a half. But legally speaking,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: can the White House actually force Canada, or for that matter,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the rest of the world, to start calling Lake Ontario
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Lake America? And where does Lake Ontario come from anyway?
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I know, but I think many don't.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, he can't force a single soul outside
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: of the federal government or a corporation that wants to
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: continue to operate in good standing with the U.S. to
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: change the name to Lake America. Under international maritime law,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Lake Ontario is a shared transboundary body of water. To
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: legally change its name globally, both Ottawa and Washington would
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: have to formally sign a bilateral treaty amendment, and good
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: luck getting us to sign off on that. during a
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: trade war. But yeah, well, let's talk about the history, though.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: The name comes from Iroquois and Huron words, which mean
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: both beautiful lake or great lake, respectively. Indigenous nations cared
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: for this watershed centuries before the United States or Canada existed.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: So the sheer arrogance of trying to unilaterally overwrite ancient
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: indigenous etymology over a tariff spat is just mind-bogglingly out
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: of touch.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Well, hey, Lake Ontario has a great history. You In
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the War of 1812, it was a major battleground. So
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: how was the lake actually used during that war?
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the history of the Great Lakes is incredible,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Lake Ontario specifically, when it comes to this. It was
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: the central supply highway of the entire War of 1812 because,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: you know, back then there weren't paved highways through the wilderness.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: So whoever controlled the lakes, Lake Ontario specifically, controlled the
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: war because you couldn't move heavy artillery or troops or
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: winter supplies through mud or forest like that. So it
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: sparked an insane high-stakes shipbuilding arms race everywhere. And then
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: when the war ended, and effectively the stalemate on both sides,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: and that's the history that I was taught in high school,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: was it didn't really need to happen. Both sides realized
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: that war on the lakes was financial suicide, and it
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: led directly to an agreement to demilitarize the lakes. And
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: they were disarmed, fleets were decommissioned, and it created the
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: longest undefended border in human history. That's the legacy on
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: this water, on Lake Ontario, not social media tantrums or
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: name changes.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay, so yesterday morning the Prime Minister released the
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: counter-tariffs on U.S. goods being tariffed coming into Canada. They include,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know where they got this one from, goldfish,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: pickled gherkins. Also, cheese curds, which will make the price
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: of poutine skyrocket in Canada. Where do they come up
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: with a list like this?
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: It does sound like absurdity on the surface, but when
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: you actually open up that tariff schedule, there were a
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: few other things that really made me laugh. Live eels,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: frozen octopus, pop-up toasters, fingernail clippers, coin-operated video games, playing cards.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: But the thing is, is that civil servants aren't picking
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: items at random with a blindfold on while walking through
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: a grocery store. This is micro-targeted geopolitics. They cross-reference U.S.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: manufacturing maps with upcoming congressional and Senate swing districts to
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: inflict maximum political pain. on U.S. lawmakers with minimal damage
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: to Canadian consumers is the ideal. So hitting paper products
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: targets Wisconsin mills, non-coca candy, for example, targets Illinois, tropical
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: aquarium fish hits Florida, all of that right in the
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: electoral gut. I mean, this is surgical warfare wrapped up
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: in a jar of gherkins, which is, by the way, Michigan, Florida,
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: and North Carolina manufactured.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: I love those pickles. Hey, final question. So how does
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: this play out for people living right on border places
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: like Windsor, Detroit, and here, Niagara, New York State? What's
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: the bottom line when all the dust and poutine settle?
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: For border communities in Windsor and Niagara, trade disputes, of course,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: as you know, they're not abstract academic debates. They're hitting
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: us right in our pocketbooks, in our guts. In Windsor,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: auto parts cross the Detroit River up to seven times
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: before a car rolls off the line. That's a lot
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: of tariffs there back and forth, adding baseline and retaliatory
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: tariffs to precision tooling or electronics. adds real friction cost
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: to local suppliers here. I mean, up there in Niagara,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you're shifting cross-border retail and you're hitting
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: tourism and you're slamming agricultural inputs, that's going to be
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: hurting as well. So the bottom line is, as we know,
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: true national sovereignty, it's not press releases, it's not bumper
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: stickers or social media posts. We fought on Lake Ontario
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: in 1812. We didn't demilitarize it about five years later.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: We turned the waters into symbols of international cooperation and
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: trade and friendship for now over two centuries. Our alliance
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: is forged in shared sacrifice, not real estate transactions. So
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: I'll just leave it at this. It's Lake Ontario yesterday.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: It's Lake Ontario today. And quite frankly, it'll be Lake
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Ontario tomorrow. Trump be damned.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Long live Lake Ontario.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Great take this morning. We'll see you tomorrow.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Cheers, Gene.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: There he goes, John Litke. Litke's got a take.