The rightwing violence we’ve been witnessing this past week in America may be a prelude to something much worse.

The hideous and bigoted slurs aimed at Representatives Barney Frank and John Lewis, the spitting on another black Representative, Emanuel Cleaver, the throwing of bricks through the windows of other legislators’ offices, the cutting of a gas line at the home of the brother of a legislator, the lynching threats, the assassination threats, the mailing of a shredded American flag doused in gasoline—all these are the acts of modern-day brownshirts.

This is what neofascism looks like.

Republicans have been tardy and muted at best in criticizing such criminal acts. And at worst they have said nothing, or egged on the criminals, as with Sarah Palin’s putting cross-hairs on a map where she’s targeting Democrats, with the reckless message, “Don't Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!”

Far from distancing himself from Sarah Palin, John McCain invited her down to Arizona to campaign for him. And he defended her rhetoric on the Today Show this week, saying her choice of words was “fine.”

"The language that we should be using today is the language that we are using," he said, though he did add, "Any threats of violence or anything along those lines is totally unacceptable and we condemn it all.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner also pulled away from the madding crowd. "Violence and threats are unacceptable. That is not the American way," he said on Fox. "Yes, I know there's anger, but let's take that anger and go out and register people to vote, go volunteer on a political campaign, and let's do it the right way."

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley chimed in: This “is not what should be going on in America. We should have respect for other peoples’ opinions.”

But then there is House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, who not only stretched the truth about a bullet he said was aimed at his office. He also said Democratic leaders “are dangerously fanning the flames by suggesting that these incidents be used as a political weapon.”

But it’s been Republicans and their mouthpieces on Fox and talk radio who have been fueling the hatred around the country. They can try to distance themselves from it now, but the damage has been done.

There is, across the land, a level of vileness we haven’t seen in this country in four decades. And this vileness, as history shows us, can lead to even worse acts of violence.

When 14 percent of Americans in a recent poll believe that President Obama may be the Antichrist, you have to worry for his safety.

It would not surprise me in the least if someone tried to gun down President Obama—or Speaker Pelosi, for that matter, so demonized is she in rightist circles.

The wise author Chris Hedges has been warning us for a couple years now about the rise of neofascism in America. Recently, he wrote, “We stand on the cusp of one of the bleakest periods in human history when the bright lights of a civilization blink out and we will descend for decades, if not centuries, into barbarity.”

This past week may mark the beginning of that descent.

Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine. To subscribe for just $14.97 a year, just click here.