In this first segment of a two-part series, JP Lyninger sits down with freelance writer Charlie Cy to discuss his circuitous path into working-class politics, the DSA and organizing. He also goes into detail about a fortuitous town hall he spoke at last year, moderated by Phillip Baker, the current Sixth District Councilman – who is unrelatedly in the news right now – that would catalyze Lyninger’s run for office. In the second installment, Charlie and JP will dive deeper into the issues that animated his campaign.
“My answer doesn’t change depending on who I’m talking to. It doesn’t matter what room I’m in or what size room. You can’t try to make change by trying to obfuscate what you think or hide your beliefs. And so, I’ve always tried to be extremely upfront about: these are the problems that we have; these are the things that I want to try to do to fix them.” – JP Lyninger
Part 2 is now live at the link below:
A Prelude
JP Lyninger is in no mood to mince words, moderate his message or pander for political points—”capitalism,” he says, “is the problem.”
But more specifically, he’s concerned with those capricious little details, the expenditures, embedded on each line-item in the bowels of Louisville’s billion-dollar-plus annual budget.
A budget, he describes as “a moral and political document,” made up of choices. Choices on how to spend a “finite pile of money.” Choices that communicate our city’s preferences and priorities. Choices that are often made in backrooms by powerful interests. Choices that dictate clear winners and losers.
And who’s winning? According to Lyninger, the private equity firms, real estate developers, Wall Street shareholders, the mayor’s donors and the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), to name a few.
And who’s losing? The working-class. A paradigm he wants to change. However, he’s quick to point out, he can’t do it by himself; it will take partners and a movement.
“My daughter makes fun of me,” he says. “She just got a cell phone. Well, I don’t want to step on my own punch line, but she makes fun of me because I said it so much during the campaign: I’m just some guy. That I can’t do anything alone. Building a movement is what matters. What we can do together, that’s where change happens. So, now I’m saved in her new phone as, ‘Just some guy.’”
Apparently, there are at least a few other citizens in Louisville who agree with “Just some guy” and are willing to help.
In May, Lyninger, the forty-year-old Louisville native, socialist, commercial and industrial appraiser, and self-described organizer, who’s kindled an uncanny obsession for politics since he was an elementary school jit, trounced the establishment incumbent candidate Phillip Baker by 20 percentage points, winning 49% of the vote in a three-way race for the Sixth District Metro Council seat in the Democratic primary after running an unapologetic working-class campaign.
Before the 2024 primary, Baker, who was appointed last year to fill the vacant Sixth District seat – after David James, the former Metro Council President stepped down to join Mayor Craig Greenberg’s administration – had yet to serve a full term or earn a single primary vote in the district.
But, as you’ll soon discover, Baker’s own choices on the budget, during his abridged term, would compel Lyninger to run against him and inevitably seal his primary defeat.
Of note, Lyninger, who was endorsed by the Louisville chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), an organization which he formerly cochaired for three terms, was the only candidate in the Derby City to upset an incumbent in the primary. It was also the local DSA’s biggest win to date.
Moreover, he will not face a Republican challenger in the general election in November, guaranteeing him victory in the deep blue district that runs from Algonquin to Paristown Point and spans the motely neighborhoods of Park Hill, Old Louisville, Shelby Park and Germantown—from 26th Street in the west to Barret Avenue in the east.
Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to sit down with and interview JP at Louisville’s Main Public Library on York, a locale I chose both for utilitarian and symbolic reasons, taking into consideration that expanding municipal services was the axis of his campaign.
We spoke for over two hours in a sprawling, substantive and transparent conversation that touched on a host of local, national and international topics and when transcribed was over 15,000 words. Due to its length, we were forced to cut certain sections, which if we’d had more room, they would have been included.
With that in mind, allow me to briefly make several editorial observations and distill his background that came out in dialogue, to set the scene, before giving JP the stage.
Two things immediately stood out at the beginning of our conversation: his appearance and his temperament. When JP first walked into the private room I’d reserved on the second floor of the original Beaux Arts section of the library on that hot Friday morning, with the town crawling with Bourbon and Beyond tourists, two days before the first day of fall, his unique campaign headshot came to life.
JP’s handlebar moustache was tightly coiffed. His long, salt and pepper curly hair was tied up. And instead of a blue blazer and button-up, he wore a weathered and on-brand navy-blue t-shirt that read: “a cause worth truckin’ for!” Beneath the slogan was an outline of a yellow Big Rig next to the abbreviation TDU, for Teamsters for a Democratic Union. Which seemed a bit ironic, considering several days prior, the Teamsters’ President Sean O’Brien made a splash, when he opted not to endorse either presidential candidate, provoking the ire of another Democratic Socialist, AOC.
Nevertheless, after we shook hands, sat down and turned on the recorder, his personal dash gave way to his erudition. When answering questions, JP took his time. He was thoughtful and logical in his progressions. Versed in local and national political minutiae. And fluid at conveying complicated ideas in a nuanced way. Moreover, he was both soft-spoken and pointed—a unique combo and useful asset in the political sphere. And though he may have some idealistic and revolutionary ideas, sure to be pilloried by the Right and neoliberals, I never felt like I was speaking to a self-righteous prophet, megalomaniac or a rube-dreamer. Instead, I sensed I was dealing with a rational, sincere and serious person and not someone to trifle with in a debate.
Lastly, Lyninger was raised in a tight-knit, progressive, working-class family in Fern Creek with two younger twin sisters. I was amused by one telling anecdote: “My grandmother,” he recalled, “who lived in our house when I was growing up, had a literal FDR shrine in her room!”
Education was also prioritized at an early age. Accordingly, he attended Noe Middle, duPont Manual High and UofL (a public-school trifecta, each adjacent to one another). After graduating from college in 2008, the first in his family to do so, he would go into business with his father (who would later become his campaign treasurer) and would move to Old Louisville—two doors down from where he lives today with his wife and two children.
Which is to say, he’s rooted in the district he’s set to serve—he’s been there ever since his father dropped him off for his first day of middle school; before which, they had an early breakfast at the now defunct Hardees at Brook and Cardinal. Telegraphing JP’s future, his dad said in that early hour, “Look around. You’re going to be here a while.” Indeed.
The Conversation: Part I
(The following interview has been condensed and edited for clarity)
Political Trajectory – Horse Trading in Frankfort – Lonnie Ali’s Gravitas
Charlie Cy: At what age were you first interested in politics?
J.P. Lyninger: I was always interested in politics. One of my earliest memories, I would watch Meet the Press when I was really young. But I misunderstood the name. I thought that the president was going to be on every week. I thought it was Meet the Pres! I was that kind of weird kid who cared about national politics in elementary school. I was very plugged in and my family was a news junkie kind of family.
Charlie Cy: I read in the Jacobin interview you did, while at UofL you studied political science and after graduating planned on going to law school and getting into politics, but during an internship in Frankfort at the state legislature became disillusioned due to the horse trading. Is that accurate?
JP Lyninger: That definitely had an impact on it. I also saw …[how] a lot of people go to law school because they want to practice law and be in courtrooms . . . And everyone I knew that went to law school and graduated was unhappy with their lives. I know happy lawyers now. But I didn’t know that [then]. And, I knew having a family was important to me. And being involved in my kids’ lives. And I didn’t see the work-life balance there.
Plus, my disillusionment at the state rep side… I was in a leadership office, and so I saw a lot of people come and go. I wouldn’t say that every meeting was with a registered lobbyist. But every meeting was either with a registered lobbyist or someone whose job was there to lobby, [for example] the president of UofL, or what have you. And people would come in . . . and there was explicit conversation about, “Well, we’re going to do this. We don’t really believe in it or agree with it. But we’ve got to do it to play ball.”
And literally the only person I think that I ever saw with a meeting that had any kind of traction that wasn’t someone with a giant official title or a lobbyist was Muhammad Ali’s widow—now widow, his wife then. That was the one person that could get someone’s ear down there. She was known as being pretty forceful.
Other than that, there was never a consideration for what’s good policy. It was all horse trading. It was all scoreboard—with the exception of Jim Wayne.”
KFC Yum! Center and TIF Funding – Sister’s first words:“Go cards!” – Rick Pitino Vies for Campus Arena – Taxpayers Foot the Bill – Drank the “Hope & Change” Kool Aid: From Obama Cufflinks to Policy Shifting Right – Midterm Shellacking
Charlie Cy: Who is Jim Wayne?
JP Lyninger: Jim Wayne is a former state representative. He was the only member of the Louisville delegation – because this was up then – to speak out against the TIF for the arena [TIF is an acronym for Tax Increment Financing, a financial instrument which diverts a portion of sales and property taxes from a multi-square-mile radius around the KFC Yum! Center for the building’s debt].
And again, I’m a UofL student. My little sister’s first words were “Go Cards!” Big UofL fan family. And yet, the sports people at UofL didn’t want the downtown arena. Rick Pitino was arguing, “No. I want a campus arena. Are you kidding me? Why would I want it downtown? I want campus atmosphere. That’s what’s good for the team.” But the city wanted the downtown arena. And there was all this pressure about the Louisville delegation [needing] to go to bat for the TIF, and Jim Wayne was the only person who said, “This doesn’t make any sense. This isn’t good policy. Why are taxpayers paying for this?”
Charlie Cy: How much were taxpayers on the hook for the bill?
JP Lyninger: I don’t have the numbers. But it’s significant. The bonds are huge. They are still actually an issue in Louisville because of COVID and when UofL basketball took that downturn—that impacted bonds. But Jim Wayne, a completely honest man. Good person. And I did admire him.
And then, honestly, a big disillusionment for me was Obama. In ‘08, I had Barack Obama cufflinks. I really believed. And the organizing platform that the Obama campaign created. I [thought] this is transformational. You’ve got this organizing tool to bring people into motion and to make big demands on society, and it was diffuse, and people were doing their own organizing.
And then he got in, and there’s this giant pivot from this “Yes We Can” transformational change to ‘We’re going to play insider games. We’re going to dink and dunk and see what we can get.’ Policy all moved to the Right. And between policy moving to the right and that intentional demobilization of the base, they ended up taking a huge “L” in the midterms.
And it was just beyond frustrating to watch. Because you could see this Astroturfed campaign derail any chance of a single-payer option in Obamacare. They just had this huge retreat, and it was like, no one’s fighting back. Well, no one’s fighting back because you took away the chance to fight back.
Obamacare and Pre-existing Conditions – Healthcare System Tied to Employer
Charlie Cy: What do you think about Obamacare? Because it’s done so much good. But you think that they had the cachet to keep pushing at that time?
JP Lyninger: I personally greatly benefited at the time. I was a post-college student, and I couldn’t get insurance. I had a preexisting condition because I had had kidney stones when I was nineteen. And my blood test came back abnormal. My cholesterol was abnormally low. And so, because I had two flags, insurance told me we can’t insure you. You’re a risk. And my mom was freaking out. Beside herself the entire time. She was like, “What will happen if something happens to you?” So, this was a stress.
So, getting Obamacare, the ACA, that was great. It made a difference in my life. That was definitely good reform. But yes, there could have been more. And you look at polling then. You look at polling now. American people want a single-payer option. They want Medicare for all. They want to untangle this stupid system we have where your insurance is tied to your employer and that creates all of these other effects that are not good policy. Nobody likes what we have except the people that make money.
Early Trump Years – White Nationalism – Defensive Organizing
Charlie Cy: When did you begin organizing?
JP Lyninger: I really started organizing, doing anything that mattered, in 2017. After the Trump election, there was a lot of concern about white nationalism. And people I knew saw the threat coming before it was a daily news story . . . And so people said, “Well, we’ve got to get organized because they are.”
So, I did anti-racist organizing. Anti-fascist organizing. And Occupy Ice. I was involved in Occupy here in Louisville. And those experiences really [showed] there were contradictions there. Where you had these people who wanted to take these strong defensive stances against a white nationalist fascist agenda, a reactionary agenda. But the organizing was lacking. And because there just wasn’t cohesion. We had a lot of different groups coming in with different ideas of what we’re going to do. But the only thing people could agree on was, defensive.
And there’s a certain limit to that kind of organizing, and to just having the focus of your organizing be anti-authoritarianism.
Anarchists & Sodium Pentothal – Robert LeVertis Bell – DSA Catharsis – Bell’s Campaign and COVID – Like a Phoenix Rising from the Ashes: Electoral Organizing
Charlie Cy: For example?
JP Lyninger: One of the things I did was Food Not Bombs. And a lot of anarchists [were] doing stuff like that. And [there were] limits there. You take an anarchist, a committed anarchist, and [you give them] sodium pentothal, truth serum. And say, “Hey. What’s the theory of change here? How are we going to build a better world?” And the answer that they would be compelled to give is, “Oh, no. That’s not on the table. This is defensive. This is about protecting my chosen family, about protecting the people I care about, protecting marginalized people and trying to have this punk rock safety net.” And that’s good. That’s not wrong . . .”
Charlie Cy: Was it tribal itself? Is that what you’re saying?
JP Lyninger: I mean, sure. It can be. But the bigger problem is that there’s not a transformational change on the table. And so, in 2019 my best friend Robert Bell had been involved in DSA for a number of years, and said, “Hey, you should get involved with this. This is really building something.” And, and I said, “I’ll check it out,” because I really was looking for something.
After 2018, we’d kind of turned a corner on Trump. Right? We’d limited the worst. That wave broke in Charlottesville as far as serious white nationalist organizing. And with AOC and people standing up to Trump in an official capacity, and the Democrats on the offensive to a degree. I [thought], “Okay, now, can we do something more than just avert the worst?”
And Robert ran for Metro Council in 2020, and he asked me to be involved with his campaign. And because I did that, I was starting to come around to DSA. The first actual meeting that I attended was the chapter and local convention that January of 2020, where Robert was also asking for the chapter endorsement. And I was blown away. This was a room that was packed. People were excited and were serious and ready to work. And I was committed on the spot. This really is something. There’s something here.
Charlie Cy: Was there a healthy group of people there?
JP Lyninger: Oh yeah. Charlie Cy: Where was this held?
JP Lyninger: Smoketown Collective. And I was just really impressed. And so, we started working on Robert’s campaign. COVID really derailed the campaign. Because, of course, our focus was on meeting people face to face and canvassing.
Charlie Cy: Could you canvas?
JP Lyninger: Well, we suspended. We didn’t really bring it back until the very end. Still very limited. But working on that campaign and then later when Robert ran for state rep—I tell people, and it’s just true: it changed my life. Because I saw, there really is something here and people do want to fight. People here in Louisville are ready for this message of We can and should have better. And it changed my life to see people ready to be activated like that. I was like, you know what? I’m going to dust off the cobwebs. I’m going to put some of this knowledge about political electoral organizing to work. I’m going to be an electoral organizer now.
Charlie Cy: Had you mentally written off going into politics at that point?
JP Lyninger: Absolutely. After the 2008 Obama campaign, I really didn’t do anything in terms of electoral politics.
The Money Didn’t Like It – Citizens United – Hiatus from Electoral Politics Comes Full Circle
Charlie Cy: So, what happened after Obama’s campaign, as you notated earlier, truly was a key piece of your disillusionment?
JP Lyninger: Absolutely. Because, again, you see we have big problems. And even trying to attempt small change was not possible if you’re going to give up these tools—and unilaterally disarm them. And it made me start asking questions of, “Why would they do that?” And the inescapable conclusion to me was, the money didn’t like it.
And so, at that time, I thought, if the money doesn’t like it, that’s the game. And then it got worse with Citizens United. And I kept voting. But in terms of, ‘I want to be involved in electoral politics?’ No. It didn’t seem like it was a good use of my time.
Canvassing District Six – Participatory Budgeting – Just Some Guy – Building a Movement
Charlie Cy: How did your campaign go for District Six?
JP Lyninger: It went well because people really were excited for the message. We did a lot of canvassing. We canvassed over 6000 homes. And I personally did a lot of canvassing and talking to people about: these are the problems in Louisville, this is my perspective on what we can do to fix them, and it’s going to require us coming together and working together, building movement. And people were excited about that idea. I love canvassing . . .
It was the reason to get out of bed in the morning . . . I love talking to people about how we can have better things and getting to know someone and getting to know what their life is like. I love that. And it was every day. I would go and I would talk to people, and they would say, ‘We’ve got these problems in my neighborhood. And these are my big concerns.’
And I would have conversations with these people about how a lot of these problems stem from our budget and how we spend our money and how we currently are prioritizing the needs of the wealthy few over the needs of the many. And here is what is missing in your life because of these policy decisions. That the budget is a moral and political document. Everything about it has an impact on your life.
Something that’s really very important to me is participatory budgeting. I believe every person in Louisville, every active voter in Louisville – because again, we’re already talking about a very select group there, most people don’t vote – [should be engaged in the budget political process]. I didn’t meet any [single voter] that could not understand the budget from at least a one-on-one level. These people, they understood. We’ve got a finite pile of money. This is what we spend it on. There are winners and losers in the budget. Look at the line items and understand these are our priorities. This is what we care about. And, there were problems in their lives because of how we spend our money.
And we knew that this was a district that we didn’t have to hem and haw about what we thought. That these people were going to be ready and receptive to our messaging. And part of that was we’d had experience running, parallel or overlapping districts in District Six. And we knew, these people, they were ready to hear us. But what really excited me about it, were how many people who not just understood that we had problems, and we needed to fix them, but understood that building movement was the way to do it. Because that really is the difference. That really is what matters.
I’m going to be one vote on the local metro council. And we need big change here in Louisville. In Kentucky. In America. And the only way to get there is organizing. Building movement. Because the fact of the matter is: renters, the working class, that’s the majority in this country. And their needs aren’t being met. So, maybe we should figure out how we can get those needs met. And if they’re not going to listen, let’s make them listen.
Phillip Baker and Town Hall at Women’s Club of Louisville – Spend $8000 to Clear Homeless Encampments – Giant Pile of Money We Light On Fire – We Took Everything They Owned And Threw It in a Dumpster – Dog and Pony Show Policy – They Need Our Help
Charlie Cy: I read in a different article, about how Phillip Baker, the incumbent for District Six, had invited you to speak about the homeless issue. And you described how we spend $8000 to tear down encampments. And afterwards he turned around and increased the budget for the LMPD. Is that accurate?
JP Lyninger: So, what happened was, almost exactly a year ago, at the Women’s Club in Old Louisville, there was this town hall about the homeless in District Six. And I walked in, right down the street from my home, and Phil walked in right behind me, which I didn’t realize. And he said, “Hey, JP.” Because we know each other. And I turned around and said, “Hi, Phil. How are you doing?” And he says, “Are you planning to speak?”
And I said, “I wasn’t planning on it. I wanted to hear what you had to say.” And he said, “I wish you would. People are really upset about this.”
So, I signed up to speak. And I got on the mic, and I said, “We spend $8,000 every time we clear a camp”—because this report had just come out in the Courier Journal. We do it dozens of times a month. So that money adds up quick. It becomes a giant pile of money that we light on fire for no good reason because it accomplishes nothing. If your concerns are about the encampments, well, you clear the camp. They’re going to go place to place to place. Eventually, they’re right back where they started, so you didn’t do anything there. But in the meantime, we took everything they owned. And we threw it in a dumpster. They lose their pets. They lose important documents. They lose their tent. They lose their sleeping bag. It’s this huge terrible disruption in these people’s lives. Huge negative consequences.
And it’s for a dog and pony show of policy. It’s to tell people, “Oh, we’re listening. You don’t like seeing homeless encampments in your neighborhood? Well, we’ll make it go away.” Except you don’t really. And it’s not even a band-aid for the giant problem that we have with our houseless neighbors in Louisville, people who need our help.
Need our help to get back on their feet and fix the problems in their lives . . . And so, we’ve got this huge problem, and we’re doing the worst thing possible. And something that really frustrated me this year was all the talk about HB 5.
Everyone Left of Richard Nixon – We’ve Made Homelessness Too Comfortable! –Parkway Place Deserves Better – Fire and Murder – Donny Green and Arthur Street Hotel – Nicole George in Hotseat – Where Do They Go? – Crowd Turned – We Can Make Change! – Phillip Baker Allots Neighborhood Discretionary Spending to LMPD Overtime
Charlie Cy: Which is what again?
JP Lyninger: HB 5 was the state law criminalizing homelessness. A terrible law. Bad policy. And people in Louisville, the Democratic Party, really latched on to it and said, “We’ve got to fight against this.” Everyone that was Left of Richard Nixon said, “Hey, we’re going to stand up and we’re going to fight this.”
It still passed, of course. But what frustrated me about it was, we already kind of did it here in Louisville. We’ve already passed ordinances criminalizing homelessness. Fining people for sleeping rough. And that’s not good policy. That’s not the problem.
No one’s like, “Oh, I would be homeless, except for the negative consequences.” Any kind of idea that we’ve made it too comfortable to be homeless is insane. What we need is housing and treatment and care in society. Those things cost money. It goes back to the budget . . .
We need more social housing. What we do have, Parkway Place, over on Hill Street. That’s in the district. I personally canvassed that five times during the campaign and talked to people who’ve lived there about the problems that they have. And they’ve got a lot. It’s dirty, dangerous, poorly maintained. Those people deserve better. And we could have better. But it takes money. It takes commitment. It takes it being a priority that we’re going to live in a society that takes care of people.
So, [I spoke at the town hall] and Phil was right. That was a crowd that was very unhappy to be seeing abject poverty and had real concerns. People in crisis living on the street. Sometimes people didn’t feel safe. There was a woman who told a story about fire and murder in her backyard, essentially, over by the interstate. That’s real. But we’re not addressing it in a way that’s going to cause solutions.
But I spoke. Donny Green with the Arthur Street Hotel, he spoke. And people listened [to how] we’re not really addressing these problems. And we turned that crowd around. And they started asking Nicole George, who was really running the meeting. Phil was just moderating the questions and answers. She was who was answering for the city. Because it’s in her portfolio. They started asking her. “Well, where do you send them when you break up these encampments?” “Where do you go?” “How do you break the cycle?” And she didn’t have good answers. Because there aren’t good answers. And the crowd really turned on that.
And so that was really exciting to me. I went home, and I told my family, “Hey. The system works. These people listened. We can really make change.” And the next day, I read in the paper that Phil was going to spend his neighborhood discretionary funds on police overtime in response to that town hall.
The Catalyst to Run for District Six
Charlie Cy: “In response.” That’s the quote?
JP Lyninger: Yeah. That’s how his aide characterized it. That was just, uh, my hair was on fire about that. I [thought], “No! That’s the wrong answer.” And that’s when I became committed to running in the race.
Charlie Cy: That was the lightbulb moment?
JP Lyninger: Because, like I said, Phil and I knew each other. I had tried to recruit Phil to the DSA; actually, at the bus stop while we’re waiting for our kids, back in 2019. And it was just the wrong answer . . .
His legislative aide told me later when I was running, he said, “Hey, it’s your neighbors that want this. It’s your neighborhood.” And I told him, “It’s not true. Yes, there are people that are calling your office. That’s self-selecting. And people have concerns, and that’s real. But people want real answers. They want real solutions to taking care of these problems, and I don’t believe the majority of people in District Six are that cold hearted. They don’t want our solution to be more misery for these people. That’s not what the majority of people want.” And he kind of stood his ground. And he was like, “Well, we’ll see.”
And I said, “We will see. Because I’m going to talk about it. I’m not going to run away from this.”
This article appears in Sep 24 – Oct 8, 2024.