A GOP statehouse candidate in Eugene, Oregon was found to have made anti-Semitic and Islamophobic remarks on social media — and told a reporter he did so because he wants to “preserve the Western cultural heritage.”

Eugene’s Register-Guard reported Tuesday that candidate Joshua Powell, who’s running for an open seat in Oregon House District 11, opined about the “Jew York Times” and the “Muslim rats” supposedly overtaking nearby Washington state.

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When contacted for comment, 33-year-old Powell claimed he’s not racist but is interested in “preserv[ing] the Western cultural heritage.”

“We’ve never had Muslims here in Oregon, ever, until now,” he said. “Jewish liberals are opening up the borders, and innocent bystanders are subjected to this aggressive agenda. And then they wonder why there’s anti-Semitism.”

Since filing his candidacy in February, Powell does not appear to have taken pains to remove his controversial public posts on Facebook. In February, after the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida led to gun control activism by its survivors, the candidate said they were nothing more than “Jews calling for gun control.”

“If the truth is anti-Semitic, so be it,” he wrote in an April 7 post. “If the majority of corruption is done by Jews, then they will suffer the consequences as anyone else would equally under the law.”

“There’s nothing wrong with profiling people based on past patterns of behavior,” Powell told the Register-Guard. “You may find some groups of people are more likely to commit certain crimes than other people.”

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A perusal of Powell’s Facebook profile reveals a number of posts critical of Israeli military action from both right and left-wing sources, along with posts that appear to be in support of President Donald Trump. His profile picture and listed education at “Anonymous University” suggest he is a fan of “Anonymous,” the 4chan-based hacker group.