In this case, bar the rare exception by individuals, these are people who are vocal that they think they're superior based on a superficial biological trait and nothing more.
A lot of things started because people have said bad things, a lot of things also haven't started even though some people said bad things. The problem is something has to start and in order for that to happen, action has to be taken.
Taking action based on the fact that some bad people one time said the same things is a bad idea, you're initiating the actions and inevitably they'll respond with more than just the words they started with.
The core difference between then and now is that America of the mid 20th century didn't believe ideas were inherently dangerous - even the communist threat led to at worst the McCarthy hearings which are universally regarded now as a stain on America's history. What we see today is lots of Valley Ivy League graduate types who are convinced that reading a few tweets of the wrong kind wipes people's brains and literally turns them into the third Reich, in ways that nobody can stop or control. But there's no evidence for this viewpoint, and arguably it just led to the largest and craziest conspiracy theory in American history (the idea that Trump is a Russian spy).