The question has been coming up more and more now as we approach one year since the 2024 General Election.

“Are you going to run again?”

I placed second in the 2024 race for chief executive of Butte-Silver Bow, and people have been asking me if I will try it again in 2028. Some people are asking because they would like to see me run again. Others, I assume, are just curious.

Maybe they want to vote against me one more time.

My answer, though, is the same. “No,” I say. “I’ve told too many people to get bent on Facebook since the election.”

And man, have I been telling a lot people to get bent on Facebook. It started the day after the election when I unloaded on some men who decided to tell lecture my daughter about her reproductive rights, or the very real threat to them.

After 13 months being on my best behavior because I was running for public office, it sure felt exhilarating to be set free by the election results. I hope all of you can experience the liberating feeling of losing an election someday.

It wasn’t that I was being a phony during the election. I only offered honest opinions about local issues. I was straight to the point and maybe a little blunt. I was so blunt in pointing out what I thought the county leaders were doing wrong that the guy who beat me in the election is still telling people that I ran a negative campaign.

I don’t get that.  Pointing out that he wanted to dump toxic waste near homes or that he fell for a con man with a fake nuclear reactor was not running a negative campaign. I didn’t bring up any side jobs in college or other extracurricular activities before my opponent was elected.

That is something a negative campaigner would have done.

In my thousands of conversations with people while knocking on doors, I never once shied away from telling the truth. But I was nice about it.

The two questions I heard the most had nothing to do with the local election. People asked me if I was going to vote for Donald Trump and if I thought transgender women should play sports with girls.

I told them that I wasn’t voting for Trump, and if they asked, I told them why. I told them that their fears about transgender athletes in sports were not real. In 25 years writing about sports, I never saw one transgender athlete.

Fewer than 10 of the more than 500,000 athletes in the NCAA are transgender, yet those handful of people were used to divide the nation and distract us from the fact that the ultra-rich are taking over the country.

Despite what you might have seen in a real negative campaign, your fourth-grade daughter is not going to have to play volleyball against Caitlyn Jenner.

However, I always said that I respect the civil rights of every person, even if I do not think it is fair for transgender women to compete in women’s events. But I would fight for every person’s right to be whoever he or she wants to be.

After the election, I figured it was no more Mr. Nice Guy when it comes to people being rude on social media.

I just don’t tell off everyone on Facebook. It typically only happens when someone is being insulting.

In the days since Jimmy Kimmel was booted off the air because the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission did not like that Jimmy was making fun of Trump, I have told dozens of people to get bent. Then I blocked them so I don’t have to fight with them again.

Let me tell you, that feels great.

That is not to say that I will just block someone for disagreeing with me. I have all kinds of friends whom I do not see eye to eye with on politics. I am even friends with some weirdos who cheer for the Packers and Yankees.

I have no problem engaging in some give and take, and I am always willing to agree to disagree with someone.

But, when you go to my Facebook page and talk about what “side” I am on or tell me that I have an “agenda” or “narrative,” you can go jump off a cliff. I am not now, or never will I be, on any “side” when it comes to politics. The only side I am on is when I’m cheering for the Bears and Red Sox or watching my son play for the Bulldogs.

That is it.

In case you haven’t noticed, my association with Erik Nylund on the Mad About Montana Podcast means that politicians on both sides of the aisle in Montana dislike me at about the same rate.

I don’t like politicians who “compromise” on things like clean water. I don’t like politicians who try to get journalists and comedians fired. I don’t like politicians who are too gutless to hold townhall meetings with their constituents.

I don’t like politicians who do not tell the truth.

When Kimmel was forced off the air of a couple of weeks ago, I posted a story about it on Facebook. My only comment with the post was, “Free speech was fun while it lasted.”

With that, the insult barrage was on. People who think the FCC shutting down a late-night show was the work of a “private company” started calling me names. Really vile slurs, too.

So, I told those people to take a long walk off a short plank and I blocked them. They are still free to say whatever they want about me and my crazy free speech ideas. They are just not going to do it on my Facebook page.

I ended the argument with a very cathartic “get bent.”

One member of the Flat Earth Society jumped into the fray after Kimmel was put back on air.

“You mean like what they did to Rosanne (SIC) and Tucker Carlson?” he wrote. “It sucks when it doesn’t fit your narrative right?”

When I explained that Roseanne Barr and Tucker Carlson were not fired by the government and told him that it was his tone that sucked, he called me a bully. He said it was not fair that “someone in journalism” was torching people on Facebook.

By torching, it appears he means making a counterpoint.

For the record, I have never pushed a narrative on anyone. I will speak out to defend anyone’s right to free speech. I will even defend the Flat Earth Society’s right to be stupid.

Yes, they keep saying that we need to turn the temperature down on our political talk. Our nation is getting more divided every day, and made-up wedge issues are the main culprit.

More than that, though, we need people to speak the truth. When somebody says something that is dead wrong, good people should not remain silent. The truth might not always be nice, but it is essential.

Nice is becoming a substitute for truth and some things don’t need to be sugar coated.  

Being nice is not going to protect the reproductive rights of our daughters. Being nice is not going bring down the price of eggs. Being nice is not going to stop us from being drug down a hole toward a totalitarian rule.

And if people want to call me names because they don’t agree with me, well, then they can get bent.

You see, that right there is why I am not going to run for office again in 2028. Or, who knows, maybe it is the reason I will win.

 — Bill Foley, who really is a nice guy, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.