pre gavin mcinnes, the proud boys would be indistinguishable from a thousand other white separatist weirdo groups larping on their compounds in washington, oregon, idaho, montana, wyoming, michigan, so on, occasionally taking road trips to blow up IRS buildings or murder jewish talk radio hosts.
mcinnes essentially paid to have their brand power washed and established the PNW as their defacto temple mount.
basically they are skinheads 2.0 with a midwestern corn fed christian vibe.
the reason the FBI is so antsy about them is because if the boogaloos and the proud boys start to pollinate, the implicit violence of the former and the explicit violence of the latter could result in real honest to god domestic terrorism on a scale never seen before. like skys the limit.