“IDAHO JOE” IS CAVE JUNCTION’S NEWEST NEO-NAZI HANDYMAN

There’s a new Nazi in Cave Junction, Oregon and his name is Joseph Reilly McGuigan. McGuigan runs a local handyman business called “Idaho Joe Home & Landscape LLC.” On Facebook. McGuigan presents himself as a friendly, hardworking guy, but in reality, “Idaho Joe” is a bona fide Neo-Nazi.

McGuigan was first identified as a Nazi in 2020, when he was twenty years old and still living in his hometown of Grangeville, Idaho. As a teenager, McGuigan used the online pseudonym “Nazgul” to create and post Nazi propaganda for Instagram and Telegram. he was particularly fond of posting selfies with guns and tactical gear while wearing Nazi gear.

Last year Joseph McGuigan, who has also used the name Joey Bruzas, moved to Cave Junction, a small town in Southwestern Oregon just north of the California border. On state paperwork, McGuigan’s business, formerly named Grazr Property Maintenance, lists his address as one of the units at the Laughing Alpaca Campground & RV Park. On Instagram, McGuigan called Cave Junction “Oregon’s most run-down town.” He was seen this winter running a burn pile near the Laughing Alpaca, and he promotes his business throughout the Illinois Valley and Josephine County.

McGuigan’s white supremacist activity was first exposed on Twitter by the antifascist research page “Garfield but Antifascist,” where many of these photos can be found along with details on how McGuigan was identified as a Nazi meme creator.

In 2020, McGuigan ran a meme page called Icywaffen, which is a reference to the combat branch of Nazi Germany’s Waffen-SS paramilitary. At other times, Joe called his meme pages Operation Defiance and Racism Factory Inc. Like the teenaged Nazi “Terror Tots” recently identified as the “2119 Blood and Soil Crew” and the “American Banderite Network,” McGuigan recruited other youth into Neo-Nazi activity through his youth-specific Telegram page, “White Youth United.”

In one particularly disturbing post, McGuigan posted a picture of himself doing the seig heil Nazi salute with the caption “Beat [n-words].” The caption describes an act of extreme violence he apparently committed.

“He was gasping ‘I can’t breath'[sic]… it was a pretty awesome experience,” McGuigan wrote

An archived version of the Icywaffen Instagram shows Nazi iconography such as the swastika and sonnenrad alongside pictures of guns and violence. One meme reads “We fight the global menace of non-white hordes (RATS)” and another calls for “Holy Terror.”

Born in 2000, McGuigan attended Nezperce High School in North Central Idaho where he was a track runner. He may have inherited his racist beliefs from his family. The current Facebook banner for Laren McGuigan, believed to be McGuigan’s father, shows a picture of Robert E. Lee surrounded by Confederate soldiers.

“Considering that these men believed and valued intensely the same things that you do… perhaps you could give them their due,” Laren commented on the photo.

As a teenager, McGuigan attempted to keep his Nazi activity secret by maintaining anonymous social media handles. After he was outed in 2020, McGuigan changed his Nazi account handles, so LCRW doesn’t know the extent of his current online presence. But he’s maintained personal social media accounts, which reveal that McGuigan remains an active adherent of white supremacist ideologies.

On his personal Facebook page, a recent photo of McGuigan shows him wearing a Mjölnir necklace, representing the hammer of Norse god Thor. Another picture of McGuigan is edited to contain the Norwegian flag. On Instagram, McGuigan has tattoos of Nordic runes running down his spine. On his Facebook business page, there is a photo of McGuigan chopping wood labelled “viking stuff.” While there is nothing inherently wrong with practicing Heathenism (the modern-day spiritual practice derived from ancient Norse religion) these symbols are often appropriated by white supremacists. In the context of McGuigan’s Nazi activities, these symbols should be interpreted as white supremacist dog-whistles. Even his username—”vikingson14″—is a reference to the “14 words” slogan of neo-Nazi terrorist David Lane.

The most revealing tell of McGuigan’s current beliefs are seen in a November 2023 TikTok video posted on his personal account @vikingson1. The video is labeled #30secondtrailer and serves as an “About Me” introduction to “Idaho Joe.” The first panel says “I wish ppl had a 30sec trailer so I can see what I’m getting myself into.” The rest of the video is a montage of McGuigan hanging out at bonfires, working out, and doing his job as a handyman. Recently he bragged about being hired by Blue Raven Solar. Inter-spliced between these personal and professional shots are video clips from the 2022 Martyrs Day Rumble, a Neo-Nazi mixed martial arts tournament in Pasco, Washington

The Martyr’s Day Rumble was widely promoted by Anthony “Tony” Allen, a known Neo-Nazi living in Central Point, Oregon, and organized by Daniel Rowe. Both Allen and Rowe served prison time for violent hate crimes—Allen assaulted a random black man, and Rowe stabbed an interracial couple. Rowe is a leader of the Evergreen Active Club, the neo-Nazi group that hosted the MMA tournament. The clips from the Martyr’s Day Rumble found in McGuigan’s TikTok are identical to footage posted by the Evergreen Active Club on Telegram.

On his Instagram story, McGuigan shared footage from the Nazi tournament six times. LCRW has not confirmed whether he attended the event or was just posting clips of it to be a fanboy.

Special thanks to the anonymous antifascists and researchers who contributed to this piece. Tips or information regarding Joseph McGuigan can be send to southernoregonhatewatch@proton.me