BY COFFIN & MOVING TRUCK, NAZIS ARE LEAVING SOUTHERN OREGON

One of Southern Oregon’s most outspoken Nazis, Keith Michael Erickson, is dead. According to Rogue Free Press, the Neo-Nazi known as “Biome” was driving along Highway 238 in rural Josephine county when he rolled his Mercedes Benz 300. He was ejected from the car and died a few days later.

The Rogue Valley Pepper Shakers, a local group who had previously documented Biome’s hateful rhetoric online, reported that Biome was scheduled for burial on February 8^th in Ashland, Oregon.

Known for evangelizing his hatred in public spaces, Biome was perhaps the most visible Neo-Nazi in Southern Oregon. He was barred from entering synagogues in Ashland, and local antifascists opposed his presence in community spaces throughout Jackson and Josephine County. In recent years Biome ingratiated himself into COVD denialism circles, using vaccine hesitancy and anti-mask sentiments as a way to promote antisemitism and Nazism, as documented by Rose City Antifa and Corvallis Antifa.

Prior to his death, Biome was abandoned by his brother-in-arms, fellow Neo-Nazi Gregg Marchese. The two spent years promoting Neo-Nazism throughout the region, but LCRW recently reported that Marchese had sold his house in Phoenix, Oregon and moved to an unknown location in Texas. Marchese said he needed to leave Oregon for somewhere “more defensible against the neo-communist revolution.”

Gregg Marchese wasn’t the only one feeling the heat from Southern Oregon antifascists. Kevin MacDonald, the editor of The Occidental Observer (TOO), left Medford in May 2021. (TOO is the “webzine” of the Charles Martel Society’s The Occidental Quarterly.) MacDonald, who the Southern Poverty Law Center described as “the neo-Nazi movement’s favorite academic” claimed he needed to move away from Southern Oregon after being “doxxed.”

MacDonald and his rag are now based in Hayden, Idaho – but it’s hard times for the one-time publisher of Richard Spencer and British Neo-Nazi Martin Webster. “Donations to The Occidental Observer have declined,” MacDonald wrote in October 2022, “making it more difficult to pay writers and the web hosting service.”

Jeff Rense, the Nazi sympathizer running Rense Radio Network out of his home in Ashland, may be leaving as well. In between ads for garlic pills and 5G rants, the Rense Radio Network hosts radio programs from infamous former Klan leader David Duke and Stormfront creator Don Black. A Louisiana State Representative in the 1980s, Duke was arguably the most famous white supremacist in the United States. In 2015, the Southern Poverty Law Center estimated that Jeff Rense profited over $55,000 a month by collaborating with fascists and promoting every brand of conspiracy theory, from the antisemitic “truth” about 9/11 to alien civilizations hidden on Mars.

At present, it is unknown where Rense intends to move. Rense Inc and Rense.com are still registered with the Oregon Secretary of State Business Registry at his home address – which is just south of Ashland on Highway 66. His two million dollar home has been listed for sale since July 2021. Currently, the house is listed with Medford’s RE/MAX Platinum office, where the real estate agents seem to have no problem collaborating with Nazi propagandists.

It’s also been a tough time for the local Patriot Front chapter. Nationally, the Neo-Nazi group was hit  hard by antifascist infiltrations and leaks last winter. Patriot Front member Richard James Flannery of Central Point, Oregon lost his job at Shop’n Kart after being identified by Rose City Antifa in January 2022. In addition to being identified by Corvalis Antifa in December 2021, Lawrence Alexander Norman was one of 31 Patriot Front members charged with conspiracy to riot in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho after they failed to terrorize a local LGBTQ+ “Pride in the Park” event last summer.

In between getting fired and arrested, the Southern Oregon Patriot Front cell repeatedly had their banners, stickers and graffiti removed and defaced by local antifascists throughout Jackson and Josephine counties. Patriot Front hasn’t claimed any activity in the area since the fall of 2022.

The fight for an antifascist future in Southern Oregon is far from over – the Jackson GOP is “redpilled,” state representative Kim Wallan of Medford has recently introduced “Don’t Say Gay” and anti-Critical Race Theory legislation, and the Saltshakers still travel throughout the area to promote their vile brand of “abortion abolitionism” – but at least it’s a tough time to be card carrying Neo-Nazi.