How Ray Lopez Became Conservative Media’s Favorite Chicago Democrat

If you were to scroll through conservative TV shows in the past few years, anytime that Chicago is in the news, it'd be hard to miss Ray Lopez. It's shameful and disgusting when I hear my Democratic colleagues trying to demonize federal law enforcement. And Johnson is no better. You know, he would hearken this as a second coming of the Civil War, encouraging people to take up arms to defend their city. Drangement Syndrome is a full-blown effect here in the city of Chicago. None of these tears when he was giving away $600 million to take care of 60,000 Venezuelan

migrants here in the city of Chicago. On today's Block Club Chicago podcast, Manny Ramos, on how the 15th Ward Alderperson became conservative media's favorite Chicago Democrat, and how his voters and colleagues,

feel about it. Mani, welcome back to the Block Club Chicago podcast. Hey, John. It's great to be back with you. Rewind the tape a little bit. Tell us a little bit about Ray Lopez before he becomes the older person. So to sort of paint a picture of how Lopez got his start, he has sort of remain rooted in sort of this law and order politics of the old Democratic Party machine. His great grandparents, at least one of whom was undocumented, settled in back of the yards.

And Lopez grew up in the southwest side and in nearby suburbs. And he's a graduate from St. Lawrence High School over in Burbank. You know, when speaking with him, he talks about how his political awakening was when he was 18 years old and he casted his first vote for. for President Bill Clinton's reelection in 1996. It was around that same time, he sort of got connected, started serving as a precinct captain for then U.S. rep Bill Lipinski's 23rd War Democratic organization. And it's quite fitting considering how or who Lopez is today in terms of like his own version of being a Democrat, right?

Lipinski himself was a quote unquote blue dog Democrat. He was opponents of abortion. He was a supporter of police. He was a supporter of the war on drugs and later the war on terror. And this is sort of where Lopez really cut his teeth and working sort of with this political machinery. He then went over to work for Mayor Richard M. Daley's office, a special event, according to the city records.

Working under this sort of like old school Chicago Democrats, you know, when speaking with Lopez, he says that he learned some valuable lessons there. And that is basically to essentially serve his constituent needs. Garbage pickup, you know, potholes are being filled, the snow being shoveled. the very traditional things that we think about what it comes to being an older person in the city of Chicago. We have a long gap there between then and when he eventually becomes an older person. Does he stay in politics forever? Does he leave the scene for a bit?

We believe he leaves the scene for a bit, you know, as he's sort of working as a skycap for Southwest Airline. Wait, he was a skycap for Southwest Airlines? Yes. You know, he worked there for about 12 years. And then, you know, a few years later, that's when he met his partner, Hugo Lopez, who himself had, immigrated from Mexico and, you know, would later become Ray's husband. The couple bought a home in Chicago lawn. This was around 2007, according to county records. From Lopez perspective, when talking with him, he says, as they sort of cleaned up the property, they had a lot of garbage that they needed to

throw out. And they contacted their office, you know, first term, all the person, Tony Folks, to sort of coordinate this sort of bulk garbage pickup. Unfortunately, Lopez says that he never got a response. And this would be something what he described was kind of a trend living in the 15th Ward while folks was the older person. And sort of he spent the summer, he said, sort of we're really trying to find his neighbors who should run against her. And eventually the neighbors told him like, hey, you know, you seem to be complaining about this all the time. Why don't you run? And that's sort of what is what sparked the 2011 campaign when he first launched his campaign for all the person. Okay, runs in 2011. Did he win?

So in 2011, it's a failed campaign against Fultz, pushes to a runoff, doesn't win. He then runs the next year for a committeeman of the ward, and he wins that. So that's sort of like his entry point into becoming older person. He said while he was a committee man, this sort of was a way for him to sort of get to know neighbors and actually be the person that they would go to for help when Fultz was unavailable. Several years later, in 2015, he then launches a bit again for older person in the 15th Ward. at this time, because of remaps, the wards get shifted over. The 15th Ward becomes a majority Hispanic ward.

So folks moves over to the nearby ward. And it leaves a vacant opening for a bunch of contestants to run for this vacant 15th ward where Lopez wins. Okay. So his former political opponent runs in a different ward. He's been the committee person now four years, runs and wins election. He's now the alder person out of the 15th with a rooted history in law and order and like practical politics, like the constituent services. So then what does he do once he's the older person?

Yeah. So in his first term, he is extremely lasered in on a couple things, right? One of the big things is illegal dump sites in his ward. So those illegal dump sites are essentially when, you know, a flyby person is driving in the truck and it dumps a bunch of garbage into like a vacant lot or something, right? And then you drive by neighborhood and you see a bunch of tires in the baking yard or, you know, old construction debris in the yard, and he really was sort of focused in on getting these sites cleaned up. And then on the other aspect of it was really taking on the gangs of his ward, which at that time, there was a huge sort of spike in related shootings and deaths.

They were happening to young people. And it became sort of a really, really cornerstone of his politics that he took on in a very aggressive manner in terms of the way he spoke against gangs and how he wanted to address the crime. President Trump wins election during his first term. What was his relationship like or his views on the president during his first term? Do we see the rumblings of what ends up being a conservative Democratic spokesperson on Fox News during these early years of the Trump administration? Trump won. Lopez has always been sort of a conservative Democrat, right?

I think that much is clear. But back then, he was a critic of Donald Trump. He went after sort of Trump's ability of promising, you know, to wage war against undocumented immigrants. He protested for against the family separation policy, which was a, you know, a cornerstone immigration policy by the first Trump administration. He protested, you know, he blasted protesters or posters that were appearing in his war that offered $10,000 for reporting undocumented immigrants to ICE. And he also criticized a local nonprofit for their work to detain minors during the family separation policy system. So he criticized Trump about building a wall in the southern border, for example. So even though he was always a conservative Democrat, still he fought against anti-immigrant

rhetoric coming from that administration. Speaking with him about looking back in regards to why this was the case, and he simply said is how Trump approached the first term, right? I mean, he first first said that he essentially called, Trump did call all Mexican immigrants, murderers and rapists. And he said that was a motivating factor for him to step in and fight against that kind of policy. So he looks back at the first term of President Trump. And obviously immigration was a key issue then. But many observers would say that Trump too has been more aggressive. Yet Ray Lopez says the reason why he defended Trump now versus back then is because of the verbiage that President Trump used to describe immigrants back then

versus the policy beating notably stricter now against immigration. Do you see what I'm asking, Manny, why some people might be confused by that? I think we have to understand who's at target here, right? And it's an uncomfortable question to address, right? The first administration, the target really was undocumented Mexican immigrants. This time around, the city's demographic has shifted in a sense of the kinds of migrants that are at focus here. And those tend to be not only, right, but a large portion are Venezuelan migrants that came by ways of buses from, you know, Texas governor, Greg Abbott.

And that has really reshaped a lot of sort of the conversation around immigration here in the city. And when I asked Lopez, like directly, what's the difference here, right? Why were you supportive of or against the immigration enforcement back then, but you're for it now? And he simply said, you know, back then it was the rhetoric about Mexicans being murderers and rapist. And when I asked him, like, does he believe Venezuelans were murderism rapists? And he wouldn't say no. He went into a long-winded thing about how needing to enforce policies at the border. And I think it paints a really

clear picture on what that difference is. All right. So he you know, criticizes Trump in the first term. Where does the shift happen where he all of a sudden is on Fox News? And he now is someone who has no problem going on there and criticizing fellow Democrats. When does the shift happen? When the shift for him? Yeah, it really happens at the height of the protests of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. During that period, you know, there was peaceful protests, of course. But then there was also, as we all know, mass destruction that happened, you know, police cars being, you know, blown up,

essentially, or stores being smashed and grabbed, right? Like, if you were around in Chicago at that moment, whether reporting or just living in it, there are stark images that come from that time period. And during that period, it was back in 2020. Lopez was then fighting with the former mayor, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, about how she was handling these protests and the violence that happened after. And he got into a class with her. You know, he said some explicit things toward her after she said something to him. And it made headlines everywhere of an alder person in Chicago clashing with the city's

mayor, a Democratic alderman clashing with Democrat mayor about this really sensitive race issue that we were experiencing in the country at the time. That's sort of when he got his first invite to the Laura Ingram show on Fox News. And by the end of the interview, look, Lopez seemed to have one Ingram over. And she told him, hey, I want to keep this conversation going. And then the very next day, he joined Fox News Harris Faulkner to talk more about the incident that he had with Lightfoot. So he had two back-to-back interviews on Fox News discussing his classes with the city's mayor. Okay, so he classes with the mayor back and forth, goes on Fox.

a couple times. As we know, later in 2020, Donald Trump loses and in comes a new administration with President Biden. So what happens in this Joe Biden era? I believe Lopez sees a shift in immigration policy when Biden takes office, whereas Trump sort of clamped down on the borders, rarely allowed folks in. He sees Biden as a person who kind of opened the Bill Gates that allowed tens of thousands. And sometimes he even says millions of undocumented immigrants. to kind of quote unquote flood our streets, right? And he sees this as a, quite frankly, the stabilizing force.

There's also things bumbling in the city of Chicago about the city's welcoming city ordinance, the sanctuary laws apparently, right, that the city has. And he's taken issue with sort of how this ordinance has been put together. Primarily, he is concerned about provisions in the ordinance that doesn't allow Chicago police

to coordinate with immigration officers. And it becomes an issue here in the city of Chicago as more and more migrants start being shipped up from Texas. And that becomes a center point for him. What that does is he is still visiting, you know, these Fox News, Newsmax and places like that. You have a party that's now been hijacked by individuals who are hyper progressive and trying to ensure that they can out crazy the crazies. To really show that Chicago is under duress, Chicago is facing a crisis that is being

exploded at the hands of Democrats, his own party. And he's speaking out against that. And he wants to sort of be the one common sense Democrat that can sort of scale back and put things back in order. In fact, Tucker Carlson calls him a very, very rare voice in the city of Chicago calling for sanity. Okay, so Ray Lopez makes Fox appearances. He opposes the welcoming ordinance, which still passes. Lightfoot loses. Incomes Brandon Johnson. And of course, the migrant crisis continues to escalate and it becomes a giant story in the city and across the country. So I would imagine Fox News, here's a Democrat who has no problem calling out Democratic policies, all of a sudden becomes booked all the time everywhere.

Mani, I want to point out, there's nothing wrong with an older person going on TV to say their views, right? I think there's a lot of them do that. Where he is different and just why we're talking about is he became a national figure, right? And he's being booked on shows that some would argue are trying to paint Chicago in a certain way. and he seems to be someone willing to play into that. And I'm not challenging that he doesn't truly believe what he's saying on there. But I wondered if you asked him, Annie, at any point,

if he feels like he's almost being used in a way to promote a view that the show wants to promote about the city. I don't know if you had a chance to ask him anything like that, Manny. Yeah, no, we talked in length about sort of like his appearances on stations like this and what are his goals and objectives to sort of like, you know, appearing on them. And he wouldn't sort of like say that like he's going on there to sort of be a tool for their agenda or anything like that.

His simple statement has always been that, you know, he's going to go on anyone and anywhere that invites him. He's going to go and preach his gospel and share his thoughts on the current political environment. But with that said, I think it's important to note that the only time he's on Fox News, the only time he's on Newsmax or any of these other right-wing shows is to sort of paint Chicago in a crime-infested picture that is overran by undocumented migrants that are controlling

the city's leaders. And I think that's important to note too. So Trump 2.0 happens. Operation Midway Blitz happens. Does he stop going on or does he go on even more? Because an even more frequent guest, right? And I think we should back up a little bit here to really show how much closer he's gotten to the Trump admin during the lead up until his election. Right. So at the 2024 DNC, the Democratic National Convention that was held here in Chicago, Ray Lopez was appeared on Fox News on three different shows on the four days that DNC was here. Are you supporting Kamala Harris? I haven't decided because even when Joe Biden was asking for the Democratic Party's endorsement here, I was the lone Democrat in Chicago to say, I'm not going to just jump in and endorse him because I've seen what the immigration situation has done to neighborhoods like my. Each time he was on that show, he sort of just said, like, I don't trust the Democrats. I don't.

And that's his right. He can say that, of course, right? No one's policing his language around the Democrats. Everyone has issues with Democrats at this moment. Just look at polling. Right. But his focus was sort of like on how immigration in his neighborhoods were a big problem that sort of the Democrats were allowing to happen.

As we all know what happened, Trump was elected. Raylo sends a congratulatory text out to him or tweet out to him, I should say. And then he meets with Tom Homan, a couple of them. month later. I think that what we're seeing is exactly what Tom Homan has stated, which is that Donald Trump is keeping his pledge to take and root out criminals from our communities. And those who don't know, Tom Homan is the immigration czar for President Trump, who is an architect of family separation policy. So the one policy in which that he was adamantly against, more like a decade ago now, he was now meeting with the architect hoping that they can sort of resolve the immigration policies that are

happening in Chicago. And leading up into Operation Midway Blitz, he was frequently on right-wing shows saying that, like, the Trump administration is not going to send roving bans of federal agents into neighborhoods, that they're going to do precision investigations that target the criminals, the violent criminals that are, that are, you know, that are in our city neighborhoods. When the president says that we're going to war, you know, many people are anxious and excited by the fact that, yes, you're going to war against the criminals. And he repeated this line over and over again until the first. sort of raid comes in. And we sort of really see the picture of what Operation Midway Blitz is. And instead of sort of regrouping and saying, hey, this is not what they said they were going to do, he doubled down.

And he, he said essentially that the agents were doing what they needed to do to rid the city of violent criminals. Now that the Trump administration is in control, why shouldn't we work with them to remove these threats to our nation from our cities? regardless of the number of undocumented nonviolent criminals that were arrested in the process. Right. So for a while he had kind of staked his, look, I'm defending the administration's ability to go in and surgically take out criminals out of this country, which, by the way, polls great. And a lot of people, a lot of people believe that. And but when that was very clearly

not exactly what was happening, or certainly not all that was happening, instead of pivoting to then criticizing the administration like he had done eight years prior, he doubles down. Yeah, he does. And during Operation Midway Blitz, he becomes a frequent guest even more so. On the various stations we've already mentioned, you know, nearly a dozen times in about about two months he was, he made his appearances on these shows where he defended ice aggressive posture, where he called protesters, quote unquote, paid Antifa members. To be honest, many people in the city of Shepa,

Chicago have had it with these protesters who have nothing better to do than to stand up on the wrong side of history. And he said that, you know, protesters were trying to kill federal agents and really sort of stoking the flames in a lot of way. That was a really tense period of time. TV can be an addicting drug and the admiration you can get on social media after your TV appearances from people who loved what you had to say can be an addicting thing too. Does he take back anything that he's said? Has he gone into and said, well, I probably, you know, in the moment, probably said something I shouldn't have said there. That was a little over the top. Or does he basically say, I've said what I said? Look, I mean, I, again, we talked about this

specifically about Miramar Martinez. You know, she is a teaching aide who was shot several times by federal agents for following them. It was a huge news where, you know, the feds claimed that she was trying to run over agents and get them off the road. And she had a firearm with her in her front seat and all this stuff. And it turned out, you know, the feds dropped their case against her. And it turned out a lot of the things that the Fed said were flatly a lie. And they bragged about shooting her five times. I mean, they bragged about shooting her five times.

The agent who shot her said some vulgar things about her too. So it was a lie. I mean, I think it's clear to say that we can say a lot of things they said was a lie. Yes. When I asked Lopez about this specific incident, considering the things that he had said about the shooting, I think when an ICE agent or any member of the law enforcement feels that they are under direct threat, they have a right of self-preservation. When you have individuals trying to chase law enforcement off the road, ambush them, corral them, are creating fake incendiary devices or other explosive devices designed to cause chaos, they are under threat. threat. And you see that through social media. You see that in many posts online. There's a real

growing threat. He essentially amplified what the federal agencies were saying about the incident. But when it became clear that the charges were dropped, I asked him if he regretted his comments. And he said, no, he said, you know, essentially that we're going to wait until all the facts are bared out. And when the facts are bared out, that's what they are. And this is after the case has been dropped. This is after the case has been dropped. And then he added, this is after the case has been laid out. This is after the cases has been dropped and the facts were laid out. I question if he's whether or not if he's amplifying the lies or the distortions by the federal government. And he said, yes, he will gladly sort of quote unquote amplify, you know, law enforcement and federal law enforcement.

And that is his prerogative. And what is the media doing? And the media essentially is amplifying the other people. So he sees it as sort of a two-way fight that's happening, it seems. He won his 2023 election without even needing a. a runoff. That's after his efforts on not passing the welcoming ordinance after much of his reaction to what happened after the George Floyd unrest and the looters. So is what he's saying, I mean, does that line up with what a lot of people in his ward think? Yeah, no, I mean,

speaking with voters that live in his ward, there was real concern. They felt like Lopez sort of abandoned them at a point in history that was extremely, they needed their part. their elected leader to sort of defend them. And they felt that Lopez didn't meet that moment. You know, I think it's also should be noted, though, a lot of time he's going on English-speaking news cable news, which I think some of his voters have said, you know, kind of hide him from the Spanish-speaking committee members in his ward. And, you know, speaking with organized leaders there as well as, you know, nonprofit leaders

who talk to me about Lopez on background. they say he presents themselves in two ways, right? There's the Twitter reply guy that he is on social media. And then there is sort of like who he is in the ward. He's constantly at, you know, senior centers, you know, helping out with seniors and doing those day-to-day things that we talked about earlier on what he believes makes a good older person. So he's still in the community doing all of those things.

And what he does on Fox News is somewhat insulated to who he is in front of people when he's in the ward. So in a way, he can kind of go on there and develop a national brand and then turn around and hand out turkeys and shake hands and be the local older person that helps you fix the potholes. And I think that that is where some people would call that hypocrisy. Other people would say, well, that's just a politician doing his thing, right? I would say so, yeah.

Does he have, like, higher political aspirations that he, rumblings of that where, you know, he's trying to position himself either for national office or for statewide office. Do we know the end game here? I think we should note that he has ran for mayor. He's also run for Congress. So he has sort of hinted on his aspirations to go beyond the 15th ward. True. When I asked him, what are those ambitions? What are his aspirations outside of the ward that he plans to keep running the ward or if he has other, you know, visions for himself? He said he wouldn't comment on that. I mean, he essentially said he was committed to doing what he's doing right now,

which is being the alderman of the 15th ward. Manning, no group is a monolith. And I want to be careful to say that, whether it's LGBT or if it's Latino voters, whatever the case is, I'm sure there's a lot of people that support what he's saying and what he's doing. I would also imagine there's a lot of people that feel like he is betraying his own people. I mean, he's married to someone that immigrated from Mexico. his one, at least one of his great grandparents was undocumented. Yeah, I mean, this is a constant complaint from those who know Lopez, right?

For example, his colleague in the city council, older person Jesse Nick Fuentes, called him a hypocrite on the council floor during one of their council meetings several months ago, right? And it ended up being sort of like a burst in class between the two. He's had protesters appear in front of his office, sort of shouting down his rhetoric around immigration, specifically his support of Operation Midway Blitz. So he's definitely faced opposition regarding his statements and his viewpoints on this topic. You know, and I ask specifically, I'm like, why is this the case? Why? What do you think about these people that are

opposing you or saying that you're not having their best interest right now? And he plainly said, like he, he knows and he believes that anyone in his ward that know him, know that he always has undocumented people at the top of his mind. He says he knows where he comes from. He knows where his husband comes from. His family comes from. And he knows where the thousands of people come from in his ward. And they know exactly sort of quote unquote what he believes in. So he still sort of believes that like even though there are some of these protesters that are happening outside of his home, you know, he's constantly being called a hypocrite in city council for his positioning. And he believes that like those who know him and those know who know his belief know that he

he does care about undocumented folks. Does he seem irritated or upset or did he say anything about the fact that you're writing a story about this, Manny? I'm curious. You know, I wouldn't say he was irritated or upset. You know, when we spoke,

he was pleasant. He was welcoming. He welcomed me into his office. I attended a, you know, a Thanksgiving turkey handout day in his ward. Extremely friendly as he always is. You know,

I will say, though, I have tried to connect with him since then. multiple times, you know, after he's really understood what we're reporting, and he's ignored my phone calls, canceled meetings, and hasn't wanted to engage in any more discussions since then. Of course, that's right, too. So then I wonder, someone read this and go, okay, why did you choose to write this story? What about this story was important to you and you think important to our readers?

Yeah, look, I, you know, everyone has their political beliefs, right? The reason why I sort of wanted to look at this story was because, you know, he is an older person who represents a large portion of undocumented immigrants in his ward. The southwest side, which much of his ward is entirely in, was a focal point of Operation Midway Blitz. All of those incidents were happening in or near his ward. And at all of this time where residents were sort of fearful to come out for groceries, where, you know, kids were staying home from school, Lopez was on TV championing. this policy. And I kind of wanted to look at sort of like his trajectory. How did he sort of get here? I just wanted to sort of like look at who is Lopez and and why has he taken a position that he has.

It's a great read. I appreciate your time, Annie. Thank you, John. Appreciate you. For more, I've linked to Manny's story in the episode show notes. You can go to blockclopechicchicago.org to subscribe or donate to our nonprofit newsroom for more stories like this and the hundreds of other stories we cover every single week in our city. Until next time, I'm John Hanson. Next podcast scheduled for Thursday or whenever a big story breaks.

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